“I’m just doing what I do. But in reverse.”
His words make no sense, but the energy flooding every cell in my body can’t be a dream. The intense arousal for him, the one that turns my brain off and my physical lust on, can’t be imagined. I’ve gone from not wanting him to kiss me to asking him to take me upstairs and into his bed. In fact, if he gives me the slightest hint he wants to screw me I won’t say no. The thought horrifies me; I don’t do this kind of thing. The sex I have is in loving relationships with normal guys.
“What do you mean?” I whisper, battling against the desire.
“Sit down again.” He slumps onto the sofa as if he swapped my exhaustion for his.
Alek shares the physical reaction with me; I can tell from the intensity of his gaze and shallowness of his breathing. His arousal was evident when he gripped me close, the effect I have on him clear. He can’t go back to keeping his distance now. Heart hammering in my ears, I do as Alek asks and approach him. I would say warily, but all I want to do is climb on top of him and kiss him until he does what I want. My body and mind are more alive than ever before in my life, even before the accident.
Alek takes a moment to regain control of his breathing, and then turns to me. “Will you promise me you won’t freak out and run out of the house? I don’t know who’s out there tonight.”
A memory of the girl dragging my life from my chest leads me to nod in agreement.
“Before you came here, in the summer, you had an accident, didn’t you?” I never told him this. “At the time of the accident, did you see something when you were unconscious?”
I swallow down the lump forming in my throat. “I had a car accident. I nearly died. I think I had some kind of out-of-body experience.”
Alek’s guarded again and tucks his hands under his legs. “When you came back, did you feel the same afterwards?”
“You mean apart from the grief of losing my best friend, the two-month coma and the dizzy spells, which stop me living my life properly?” I say tersely, as the frustration from the accident pours from me. I don’t talk about this.
Alek’s eyebrows dip and his mouth thins, as if sharing my emotions. “Do you have dreams about the accident? Or feel presences?”
The panicked breathing I get when I wake from the dreams starts; I fight to control it, knowing the light-headedness will follow. “Dreams.”
“Not just dreams. You could see Clarissa.”
“And?”
“She’s a ghost, Rose.”
Now I understand why he asked me not to get up and run screaming from the house because, at this moment, I want to. “A ghost?”
“Yeah. Well, she’s a Shade. They’re different to ‘usual’ ghosts. Shades are similar to ghosts because they’re remnants of human lives that refuse to leave once they die. But Shades carry more energy than ghosts, enough to allow them to temporarily enter the human world again with a physical form. This is where hauntings and poltergeists come from. Also, unlike normal ghosts, Shades aren’t tied to one place and can move around the world, until their energy is used up. Like the girl who attacked you outside the pub. But once they use up all their energy, they fade away like normal ghosts.”
Well, next obvious question. “Are you a Shade?”
Alek rubs his pale lips together. “No. I’m like you.”
“And what’s that?”
The click of the gas fire is the only sound in the room as Alek stares at his boots. He rubs his forehead as if trying to decide what to say, and then looks directly at me. “I’m Between.”
“Between what?” Tonight, I’ve had enough and processing anything else is impossible.
Without pausing, he pushes on, words tumbling out. “You died and you came back to life. You shouldn’t have. Someone fucked up.”
I choke. “Well, I’m glad they did!”
He ignores me. “But even though you’re not dead, you’re not the same as other people now. Like me, you’re stuck between this world and the next.”
“Are you saying I’m a ghost? I can’t be; people can see me. I’ve had loads of medical treatment, I’m alive and I’m a person!”
“You’re not a ghost because you have the ability to exist in this world, but you’re not fully human anymore.”
I rub my eyes. My brain won’t process his words; I’m still stuck on Clarissa being a ghost. “And you?”
“Yeah. Same.”
Pulling myself from the chair, away from the desire to put my lips on his again, I step back and cross my arms over my chest. He’s telling me I’m ‘not fully human’ and I’m thinking about kissing him?
“Why are Shades attacking me?”
“If Shades get the right kind of energy, they can stay in the world longer, but not forever like we can. We still have our physical bodies because we never died…properly.” He’s serious. Alek is bloody serious. “Our energy. That’s why the girl attacked you; she wants your energy so she can stay in this world.”
“And your energy?”