Ghosts of Halloween: Chapter 28

Silas finishes his tale, eyes gleaming with a challenge as he looks at Harlow. His throat works, and his fingers curl slightly and uncurl, as if he’s checking the impulse to ball his hands into fists.

“Who… who was it?” Harlow asks, her face pale, eyes dry.

“Some guy,” Silas says with a jerk of his shoulder, like he wants to shrug with indifference, but is too wired to pull it off. “Vladimir’s goon. Don’t know his name and it wasn’t on the news. When they came for us, they took the body away and bleached the floor before the police arrived. Vladimir wanted the crime scene clean of his evidence, and that guy’s body was like a neon sign pointing at him.”

Harlow turns to me, hugging herself, shivers going down her arms and sides.

“But he’s dead,” she says, her quiet voice ringing with satisfaction. “You killed him.”

I nod, and she throws herself at me, cool arms wrapping around my neck. Suddenly, I have an armful of naked Harlow pressing to my body, and despite the solemn mood and grim memories floating in the air, my dick twitches in my pants.

Without conscious thought, my hand travels down her spine to settle right over her ass, and I start planning how to drag her away for a bit, when Silas’s cold voice cuts through my growing lust.

“Don’t you want to know what your brother’s last words were?” he asks, taunting.

“Fucking stop already,” Jack says, and I’m torn.

On the one hand, I always wanted her to know. I wanted the knowledge of everything that led to us becoming ghosts to destroy her as we took our revenge from her body. But Harlow’s grown on me. She’s become… precious, in a way. She’s suffered enough, and she’s still grieving, I can tell.

I don’t want to add to her suffering. But of course, it’s too late.

She turns to Silas, walking out of my embrace, her body vibrating with tension.

“Tell me.”

Silas watches her for a while, and I think there’s hesitation in his face. I sigh with relief, thinking that maybe there is enough good left in him to take pity on my cold, trembling little bird.

And then he speaks, shattering my hope.

“With his dying breath, Noah said these words: please, take care of Harlow. Promise me.”

She freezes, her mouth falling open as tears gather in her eyes. I pray for Silas to end it there, because that’s enough opening old wounds for us all, but his face sharpens, eyes blazing with a new resolve, and he adds, “And we promised. Because if your dying friend lies on the floor in a pool of his blood, you fucking promise. You tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

He breathes hard, chest heaving, and his eyes grow hard like glass. Harlow presses her hands to her chest, and I put my arm around her, but she’s tense and rigid, unable to fold into my embrace. I look at Silas, and he throws me a mocking glare.

It’s a challenge, but I won’t stop him. I promised I’d let him do this. And I’m a man of my word.

When I say nothing, simply stroking down Harlow’s skin and prosthetic as gently as if she truly was a wounded bird, Silas’s face turns uglier.

He pants with the rage he pent up for two years. If he could breathe fire, he would. I know that curse we woke up with after we died burns him inside like a hot iron. I know, because I feel it, too. The trap we’re in is a suffocating, endless torture. Instead of soaring free, like dead souls are supposed to, we are branded and tied.

To her.

But unlike Silas, I can’t hate her. I’m no longer on board with what he wants to do. I just want her to be safe and sound. A little bird, taken care of and cozy in her nest, watched over by three vengeful ghosts.

She is my something missing, finally found. I’ve always been a protector, and Silas is hard and self-sufficient. Wounded so much, he can’t give over control. But she…

I sigh, shaking my head, the hot pain in my chest rising with every breath. No time for dreaming. We have hours left, and then…

Silas’s sharp voice cuts through my thoughts. “We promised. Each of us said it out loud to ease our dying friend’s last moments. And then, just like that, he was dead. But we weren’t. Not yet.”

Jack pants with fury on the other side of Harlow, staring at Silas but unable to stop him. It’s like he wants him to finish. He wants to hear the cursed ending of the tale, even though we know exactly how it ends. We lived through it. We can never forget it.

“And then, the dead guy’s friends came,” Silas speaks, voice quiet, but so perfectly clear. Harlow’s breathing is shallow, barely audible. I don’t breathe at all. “Three of them. Caden shot one in the leg, and then got a bullet in the skull. Jack got three before he collapsed. And I was shot in the stomach, and when I lay on the floor, waiting to die…”

He takes a shuddering breath, rage giving way to pain, and I let go of my little bird, leaving her in Jack’s care, and go over to my hurting lover. Gently, as if reaching to touch a wild animal, I lay my hand on his shoulder blade. Silas flinches but doesn’t throw me off.

“They told me everything,” he says, voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “While I writhed there in agony, they told me who ratted us out. They gloated while I lay there, my guts ripped open, the life bleeding out of me. And when they were done, they kicked me. So many times.”

Harlow sobs once, her face splotchy and streaked with tears, and Silas looks up with a ghastly smile.

“Right before I lost consciousness, I was glad, angel,” he says, suddenly so calm, it’s eerie. “I was glad because it was over. I knew I was dying, and I welcomed death with open arms. Like a beautiful angel bringing me rest.”

We’re quiet, only Harlow’s choking sobs breaking the silence. She tries to swallow them, but they explode out of her, muffled sounds of suffering and compassion. She can’t tear her red-rimmed eyes away from Silas, both her hands, white and black, shaking on her naked chest.

“And then I woke up,” Silas says hoarsely, his calm features crumpling. “I was dead, and yet I wasn’t. Bodiless yet in pain, free to roam yet not to escape. I woke up in this house with clear awareness of why I was held back. Why the angel didn’t want me.”

He looks up, hard, unforgiving eyes drilling into Harlow.

“I made a promise, and it binds me even in death. Because I promised to protect you. I am now here, going mad from being unable to die. From being trapped in this horrible prison.”

Harlow’s silent, frozen to the spot, and Silas grins, his handsome face twisting in an evil smile.

“You’re my unfinished business, angel.”