Chapter 32

Experiment #2 / Status: Ongoing

Topic: Communication

Lucky quietly paused for a moment to perform her self-assessment before continuing. “Is it okay if I call you Hennessee? Do you have a different name?”

“My name is Reggie.” It sounded anything but sure.

Lucky frowned. “Who made you?”

“Our parents. Why would you ask such a stupid question? We look alike.”

“You stole my brother’s face. He looks like me.”

“I was born first.”

“Purely by circumstance,” she said, changing tactics to play along. “I can’t actively remember, but I feel like you pushed me out of the way. My memories might go back that far, though. Can you see that? Do I have a memory of the day I was born?”

“Yes.” Specter-Reggie asked, “Would you like to know the first person you read?”

“Interesting.” That was Hennessee answering. It had to be. She needed to keep it on this topic to know for sure. “I remember that,” she lied.

“You do not. You remember the first resident of your memory palace. Me.”

Shit. It flipped back to Reggie—Hennessee didn’t have a reading. What was going on? Why couldn’t it stay focused?

“Who was the first person I ever read, then?”

“Our mother.”

That was a direct question. It wouldn’t have answered if it wasn’t true. Lucky did have that memory somewhere.

Reggie wouldn’t know that. She didn’t even know that.

Hennessee appeared to be oscillating between staying in character as Specter-Reggie and speaking as itself. A hybrid state.

“Why aren’t you using that other voice?” she asked carefully. Wary. “The super deep voice I heard inside my head. That was you, wasn’t it? The real you?”

Specter-Reggie’s eyes met hers, shining with mischief so blatant it made her shiver again—and not in a good way. “Because it scares you when almost nothing does.”

That voice had made an unforgettable debut on the list of things that unnerved Lucky to the bone. The ghost formerly trapped in her memory palace, being possessed by it, had been Lucky’s biggest fear. She wished that Hennessee had asked before deleting it, but she wasn’t sorry it was gone, and in the time since, the house had obeyed her wishes. All of her other readings remained untouched, even the ones that caused her a great deal of pain. But why did the house do that in the first place? It didn’t make a lick of sense…

Unless the house thought it was helping her by deleting it and never meant to replace the ghost with its voice, but it had. And now it refused to use it. Interesting.

Lucky realized she might’ve been wrong before. “If you don’t want me to be scared, what do you want?”

“I want a normal sister.” Specter-Reggie…frowned, face clearly folding in frustration. “No.”

“No what?” She held her breath.

“I want—I want—” Its eyes darted from side to side, searching but not seeing. “I want a normal sister. No.”

Was it…struggling? What was it trying to say? She turned toward it, brimming with determination. “You’re not my brother. You are not Reggie. Be you, Hennessee. Who are you?”

“No.” It shook its head. “No.”

Specter-Reggie disappeared before Lucky could say anything else. She sighed, sitting back against the bench. “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”

But it was good, solid progress, and it only took another week for Lucky to discover why Hennessee had run away.

Reality made specters unravel.

Days later, Lucky was squaring off against Specter-Reggie in the library. “Talk to me, Hennessee! Come on! You are not my brother, and you know it,” she said with conviction. “You are not Reggie. This is not real.”

When continually denied, Hennessee glitched out of the hybrid state and briefly seeped through its specter-avatar. She could force it to speak to her directly, but the connection only lasted for a few costly minutes.

“Who made you?” she demanded. “Where did you come from?”

Specter-Reggie’s eyes turned black, jaw slack and mouth hanging open.

She readied herself, waiting for its voice to echo inside her mind. “What do you want?” she pleaded. “I’m not afraid. Tell me, please.”

“give me what I want—are you not happy—will you stay—will you run.” Specter-Reggie winked out of existence faster than Lucky’s eyes could catch. She fell back onto the floor, closing her eyes and trying to slow her heart rate. A fine layer of sweat coated her skin. Her head swam, eyes pulsating in her sockets.

Connecting with the house like that had formed a tremendous psychic link and she routinely collapsed from the stress of standing her ground. Exhaustion stretched between them—infecting and commiserating. Forced glitching had become just as draining for her as it was for the house.

Progress required sacrifice and she was only hurting herself. Every night it got closer and closer to being able to speak to her purely as itself in the hybrid state. It demanded information, consistently struggling to offer any return. She steadfastly refused to give in even when it resorted to insults. Close to sunrise, when the house was at its weakest, it cooperated while she forced the glitch.

Because they were in it together now. For better or worse.

Gengar climbed on her chest, activating bread-loaf mode and staring at her.

“Does the house talk to you too?”

He blinked once and she narrowed her eyes. “You’re next on my list, mister. Don’t think you’re not.”

Lucky talked to Gengar regularly for the company. She spoke to Georgia once per day and Xander once per week, but it didn’t feel like enough. She’d spent so much time with NQP, she began feeling the absence of people more acutely than ever before.

Now that she’d secured an investor (that philanthropic asshole), she also began thinking about her next steps. When she finally unraveled the secrets of Hennessee House, where would she go? What would she do? She quit her full-time live-in nanny gig for the show. She didn’t even have her own apartment waiting for her at the end of this.

She’d have enough money to start her own supernatural PI business, but was that really all she wanted? It was—weeks ago, before she’d met NQP and began working with them. Before she’d met Maverick.

In the kitchen, she downed an entire bottle of water in thirty seconds flat and then inhaled a granola bar. Her stomach kept rumbling so she ate two more while making eggs and toast.

Lucky nearly hit the ceiling when her phone suddenly rang. Clutching her chest, she checked the screen and gasped. While not quite sunrise, Hennessee was exhausted. It’d be safe to drop the brick wall. “The world must be ending,” she said after answering. “This is your final goodbye.”

“Hardly,” Maverick said dryly. She hated how her entire body seemed to react to the sound of his voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I needed some time to reevaluate where I’m at.”

Lucky sighed as she brought her breakfast to the table. “How did that work out for you?” She tried to be understanding but that ship had set sail a week ago. All she felt was bitter and a little hurt.

“I know you can take care of yourself. Trusting you doesn’t mean I trust that house. I’m terrified it’ll take things too far and you won’t want to stop until it’s too late.”

Lucky glanced around the room—Hennessee House’s sublimely retro and inviting kitchen. She thought of Eunice, how the NQP team found her alone and passed out, close to where Lucky sat now.

“I’m trying to balance trusting you and being afraid for you, but one side keeps outweighing the other.”

His fear, his caution, was winning. She didn’t need him to say it.

“On top of that,” he said, “I can’t stop thinking that this is just the start of it. It’s always going to be like this. You’re always going to prioritize your career over our relationship. I’ve already been down this road with Rebecca, and I can’t do it again.”

Lucky forced herself to ask, “And where is she?”

“Off studying some super scientific gene sequencing thing in Massachusetts. You’ll meet her at some point.” His breathy laugh caused an eruption of butterflies in her stomach. She rolled her eyes at herself, because really?

He continued, “I didn’t want to talk to you about this until I was sure. I know it hasn’t been that long, but I’m not interested in anything temporary or short-term with you. Before, it kind of felt like you weren’t as all-in as I was.”

“Do you need me to say that I am? Because I am.”

“Yeah, I know that now,” he said.

Lucky finished her last few bites and cleared the table. “So, Rebecca?” she asked as she began washing the dishes.

“She just had all these larger-than-life goals for herself. Back then, it made the most sense, for our family, for me to take Rebel and for her to continue her education. I had a family to fall back on. Rebecca only had me. If I didn’t tell her to go, she would’ve stayed, but I don’t think she would’ve been happy. I didn’t want her to feel like she was wasting her life and end up resenting us.”

“And she just…left?”

“Rebecca isn’t a bad person. I don’t want you thinking she is. She’s a part of our lives and that isn’t changing,” he said, defensive. Protective. “We were really young. We met, hooked up at a party, and kept doing it until she got pregnant. We tried to make it work but…we couldn’t. Good sex alone isn’t enough to hold a relationship together. You can’t build a life on that.”

Oh, shit. Lucky immediately began to high-key panic. Did Maverick think the opposite was true—bad sex was enough to ruin it? Oh, shit.

Jumping to conclusions before he finished wouldn’t help anything. She had to hear him out. While focusing on calming her thoughts, she set out an early wet-food breakfast for Gengar and headed to her suite.

“But that’s not what I want to focus on,” he said. “The point I wanted to make is I don’t know if I could make that same choice with you. I’d be selfish and I’d lose you anyway.”

“Well, if I felt like you were standing in my way, on purpose, it would change things for me. But I know that’s not the kind of person you are.” Lucky needed to hold the banister for support. Her legs barely had enough strength to get her up the stairs safely. Communicating with Hennessee drained her in every way imaginable—mentally, emotionally, and physically. She’d even started taking her baths in the afternoon because she was too drained to do anything other than sleep after being with the house all night.

“That’s not the kind of person I want to be with anyone, let alone you,” he said. “I just found you and I’m already scared of losing you. I know you feel like I’m being unsupportive, but that’s where I’m coming from. That’s the heart of it.”

Lucky’s own heart reacted accordingly by losing its mind. Unsure what to say yet, she decided to keep quiet for once. She closed the curtains in her suite to block out the light. If she didn’t, she’d wake up well before Hennessee’s good morning tug. Pajamas already on, she climbed into bed and covered her head with the blanket.

“I feel like you locked me out,” she whispered. “You asked me not to run away and then you did. I’m fine waiting as long as I know I’m waiting. Don’t go radio silent on me.”

She should’ve seen it coming. He had a clear history of it. When Maverick got stressed, he disappeared. Checked out.

Silvia told her so. He let Rebecca go. He even retreated into himself, while standing right next to Lucky several times.

“You’re right. I know. It’s just…that’s easier for me. I don’t want to make excuses so all I can do is promise to be better in the future,” he admitted. “Because sometimes, I really do need time and I don’t want to be pushed. The other night, I got super anxious because”—he paused, exhaling into the space he created—“I didn’t know enough about asexuality. I thought asexual people hated sex, like as a feature.”

Oh. “Well, some of us do,” she admitted, worrying at her bottom lip. “That’s very true for them.”

“But I thought that applied across the board. I honestly thought you were pretending until you pushed back so hard. I believed you,” he said. “I knew I needed to educate myself before I fucked everything up. I found some pretty balanced articles and a couple of memoirs that really helped me get a handle on the basic definition. My biggest takeaway was that generalizing is pointless.” He laughed. “I was dead wrong and so glad I didn’t say anything.”

He—he—he researched? On his own? Because he wanted to be proactive and understand asexuality better? Lucky felt like she was melting into a heart-shaped puddle. She’d never find someone like him again.

“I didn’t mean to push you. I honestly thought being forward and getting everything out into the open was the right way to do that.” She sighed, closing her eyes. No excuses. “When I said I wanted you to feel comfortable telling me what you need, I wasn’t only talking about sex. I’m sorry I did that.”

“Honestly, I was trying to downplay it because”—he hesitated again, voice thick with frustration—“the things I want to do with you, to you, I can’t even say them because I can’t get past this block of thinking I’m too sexual. It’ll be too much.”

“You’re not entirely wrong,” she said, thoughtfully. “The truth is I don’t know, but I’m very much okay with finding out. I trust you.”

And she trusted herself too.

“Let’s try it,” she murmured. “Start small.”

“I want to see you.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone.”

“This is what we have right now. Do you like phone sex? I’m surprisingly proficient at dirty talk,” she bragged.

The silence on the other end of the line was so loud.

She sighed his name. “Most people wouldn’t have given me half as much care and attention as you do. I’ve told you everything. Everything. At some point you’re gonna have to believe me about this.”

“I do believe you.”

“Then be your honest self with me,” she said, and then got an idea. “Because if you ever cheat on me, we’re breaking up immediately. I will never speak to you again.”

“I would never do that.” He sounded sufficiently offended, so she switched up her tone.

“You say that now, but one day little Maverick might get tired of your shit and take over. Repressed sexual desires can lead to people making wild decisions. I’ve heard lust plays you all for fools.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” he said. “Also…it’s not little.”

“I haven’t seen it. I wouldn’t know,” she teased.

“I’m telling you it’s not.”

Lucky paused, checking in with herself to see if she felt repulsed, which could happen occasionally…and nope. She was still good. “How big are we talking, then? Have you measured it? Can I measure it?”

“Lucky.”

“I’m asking scientifically. For science.” She laughed. “I’ll even use official scientific tools—like my hands.”

He laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m proficient. Give me a chance to prove it,” she countered. “I’m not going to judge you for being too sexual, especially since you’ve been nothing but good to me. You wouldn’t believe the shit people say about aces and you haven’t said any of it. Not a word, not an insult, not even on accident. If I can’t handle it, trust me to tell you and we’ll go from there. As soon as you’re ready, I’m ready.”

“I’ve been ready. I have been struggling since the day I met you.” He laughed. “You were wearing overalls and a sweatshirt, but you might as well have answered the door naked.”