Chapter Nine

Burke

I stare at her from my spot beside the tree trunk, taking in her beauty, her anger, and everything that makes her the person I have fallen in love with. Tonight has taken its toll, not just on her but on me as well. There is a reason I’m not standing in front of her, why I’m not wrapping her in my arms. My damn legs won’t work.

The moment the darkness left me, fatigue set in. In my life I have never felt as bone tired as I do in this moment. I saw the same footage she watched, I saw it inside me, fighting for dominance.

“Tell me,” she says, canting her head to the side.

A sigh leaves me. “Will you sit beside me?”

“Now you start asking for things?”

Her cheeks are red with anger, blazing twin fires in her eyes as she continues to glare. She has every right to be pissed off but the fact that she hasn’t run again says more than her words or her rage ever could.

“Please.”

It takes her a moment to decide before she finally makes her way over to me. Once she is seated, I start the video and turn it toward her.

“What do you see?”

“I get the point. I enjoyed everything you did. It doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t answer my question.”

“Look closer,” I implore. “Look at me.”

She takes the device from my hand, watching the footage, going forward and backward before pausing it on a specific spot.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“I have wanted you since I first laid eyes on you, I won’t lie about it. I have gone home and rubbed myself raw with thoughts of you in my bed,” I confess. “I have had dark and dirty thoughts about you every single day. But never like this. This…”

“You didn’t know you wanted it until you were in the moment,” she whispers.

“Yes.”

“I still don’t understand.” A frown mars her beautiful face.

“Since I was little, stories have floated around town. Tales of people giving in to depravity, violence, darkness, but I never put any stock in it until now.”

“Thea told me about these stories. People claiming to be possessed.”

I nod, unsure of what I should say next. So I wait for her to make the first move.

“Are you trying to tell me you are possessed?” she asks, disbelief dripping from every word. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I know you’re not stupid,” I reply harshly. “I also know I never wanted to hurt you. I have never lied to you. Even tonight, not a single untruth came from my lips.”

“This is insane,” she mumbles, staring at the screen once more, looking at my mangled features.

“I know. I felt it come over me before I picked you up and slowly it swallowed me whole. Telling me what to do, using my body to do whatever it wanted.”

She stares at me with a look I can’t decipher.

“You’re apologizing?”

I nod and she stands, distancing herself from me. My phone falls from her fingers as she stares at me and I realize my mistake too late.

“You regret it,” she whispers, tears clogging up her throat and distorting her voice. “You’re using this as an excuse to explain away your behavior.”

“No!” I roar into the night sky. “I only want to explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain, Burke. I finally understand.” Her body shakes as a sob breaks free.

My heart stutters in my chest with the need to go to her, to hold her and comfort her, but still my legs won’t move more than an inch.

An apparition forms beside her, shimmering in the pale darkness.

“He isn’t lying.”

****

Sage

“What the fuck!” I scream, my heartache forgotten.

In an instant I find myself back in Burke’s arms, sitting against the tree. Figures I would run to the man who just broke my heart to keep me protected. Why, after everything, do I still feel safe in his embrace?

I stare a t— no, throug h — the man standing before me. He is wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. But they aren’t quite real.

“My name is Marco.”

Both Burke and I stare without saying a word, waiting to understand what we are seeing.

“On Halloween, the veil is at its thinnest and we are able to walk the mortal world once more,” the apparition says. “I have watched from beyond the veil, seeing the two of you dance around one another. Around what you truly want. I decided to fix the problem.”

“Fix the problem?” I repeat in disbelief.

“When I was alive, I let what other people wanted and thought to dictate my life,” he continues. “I waited too long to claim the love of my life. She died before I ever got the chance to tell her how I felt.”

My heart breaks a little for what I now know is a ghost.

“I didn’t want Burke to make the same mistake.”

“So you possessed me?” Burke asks angrily.

“I did what you were too afraid to do,” Marco says without remorse. “I wouldn’t let history repeat itself. You can’t say I didn’t do you a favor.”

I feel Burke’s stiff posture beneath me. Before he can utter another word, I cut in.

“It may not have been the way either of us wanted. But it was what we both craved.”

Marco, the damn ghost we are talking to, nods with a smile before disappearing again. I take a moment to breathe, to think through everything that has happened tonight. Turning on his lap, I face him, staring into his eyes.

“Do regret it?”

“Not for a single fucking second. Marco really did do me a favor,” Burke says before locking his lips to mine.”