15.

A lot could change in a year, Zeke realized, but some things didn't.

Like Eleanor.

Like her hatred for Zeke.

Like the fact that he wanted to destroy her for everything she'd done.

He'd had a lot of time to think over the last year. He'd been able to plan, and he'd been able to learn, and he'd been able to finally make a decision.

If Jack wouldn't love him back, he wasn't going to turn into a pumpkin forever. He would rather die than be Eleanor's plaything, so that's what he would do.

Only, as it turned out, there was something Zeke wanted more than he wanted to die. He wanted to live, and he wanted to live for Jack.

He visited his mother's grave. His father's tombstone was still empty. He'd heard Jack talking about visiting his dad at the assisted living facility, so that was his next stop. Only, when he got there, the front desk person just shook her head.

"Alex is already gone for the day," she said, flustered.

"Gone where?"

"He's out with his niece."

Jacqueline. It had to be.

"Does she visit often?"

"I'd have to check with Renee," said the receptionist. "She's the one who usually works the front desk. Honestly, she's supposed to be here right now."

Alarm bells went off in his head.

"She's not here?"

"No, she didn't show up for her shift. Unusual, honestly, especially for Halloween." The lady looked Zeke up and down. "We get a lot of...strange people this time of year." He wasn't offended. He knew he was probably the strangest person she'd ever seen. He was fit, but he had on a zippered hoodie and sweatpants plus his ridiculous pumpkin mask.

"Why wouldn't she show up?"

"No idea." The lady shrugged. "She didn't even tell us she wasn't coming in. Pretty uncool, if you ask me."

Zeke didn't wait to hear more. He had to get back to the apartment. He knew that Eleanor could take different shapes, resemble different people. He also knew that she couldn't take the shape of anyone living. That was how he'd learned his mother had died. Eleanor had come to her in Mom's form, and it had been the most torture Zeke had ever endured.

Now he was going to return to her home, and he was going to stop Eleanor. That was definitely where she was going. If she'd been playacting as Renee, chances were that she knew Jacqueline wasn't actually Alex's niece, which meant she knew who Jacqueline was to Zeke.

And Eleanor would stop at nothing to protect her pet.

Zeke rushed out of the living facility, hurried down the road, and hoped he wasn't too late to stop whatever nightmare Eleanor was going to unleash. She'd spent the last fifty years taunting and torturing him. He wasn't going to let her keep on doing it.

Not anymore.

Not today.