I thought about it as I chewed the corner of my bottom lip. "I have a few things that could work. I'll need to pick them up from Miles' house before we head over."
"I'll tell Sylvie we're hitting Miles' house,” he muttered as he began to put the burgers on the grill. "That should get me a few hours."
"Sylvie is going to be studying for the Bar Exam, right?" I asked, getting his mind off where we were going tonight. We talked about Sylvie's new job that was waiting for her, how happy she was to see the light at the end of the night shift tunnel. Anything to keep him from worrying about tonight. I was worried enough for the both of us.
It was almost dark when the twins drove me and Hades over to the address Travis sent me. It was a neat three-story house at the north end of town. Ethan pulled the car up to the curb and parked. The others weren’t too far behind. When I got out, I brought Hades and my bag with me. The front door opened. Keith, Travis, and a girl who was vaguely familiar came out onto the front porch. Her brown hair was back in a ponytail.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before walking up the flower-lined walkway.
“Lexie, this is Cara,” Keith said. “Her little sister Mia is the one the activity revolves around.”
“One moment,” Miles said as he reached the porch steps. He held up the papers in his hand. “First, everyone signs the confidentiality agreement.” He pulled a pen from his pocket and handed it, along with the papers, to Travis. Travis sighed, put the contract on the porch railing, and signed. Keith did the same.
Miles turned to Cara. “You too, please.”
Cara eyed him and then signed as well. She handed the contract to Miles. Miles nodded to me. I sent him a small, grateful smile.
“Fill me in,” I said.
Cara gestured for us to come inside. We followed her into an inviting living room and I sat on the couch beside her. Hades sat on the floor next to me. Asher took one armchair and Ethan took another. Keith and Travis stood near them. Zeke and Isaac leaned against the walkthrough to the foyer.
“It started a month ago,” Cara began, her hazel eyes shadowed. “My sister and I had horrible nightmares. Mine were bad, but Mia’s…” She met my eyes. “Mia told me about one once. It was like every nightmare she had ever had wrapped up into one.”
“That bad?” I asked.
She nodded. “In that dream she was skinned alive. She felt it and she woke up screaming. I thought something was wrong.”
My nightmares were bad, but… damn. “What happened next?”
“My nightmares went away, but she started sleep walking. We found her a mile away once, just walking down the middle of the street. She had no clue how she got there.”
“That’s scary as hell,” I admitted.
She nodded. “Mom and Dad thought she was just sleep walking, but it didn’t feel right. Then things started moving around the house.” Cara took a breath and let it out. “Doors slammed. I could hear a voice, but I could never hear what it was saying. Then the first scratches started.” Cara met my eyes. “My parents thought she was being bullied at school, so they took her out and put her on homeschool. But it hasn't stopped. She barely sleeps anymore, and one night, when she slept next to me, I woke up to her standing there with a knife. The look in her eye wasn’t my little sister.” Oh, shit.
“I’m going to assume that’s extremely out of her normal,” I offered lightly, trying to break the tension and failing.
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Now, she gets sick whenever she tries to go to church. She’s awake all the time. And if I make her angry, things fly at me. My parents don't believe me and I don’t know what to do.”
I nodded. If I had a sister, I’d feel exactly the same way. “Where is she?”
She wiped her face. “She’s upstairs, playing I think. I let her stay up past her bedtime tonight.”
“And everything happens around her?” I asked.
“Lately, yeah.” She answered. This was one seriously powerful ghost or.... the kid had abilities.
“Think I can talk to her?”
Cara nodded and got to her feet. I told Hades to stay before I followed her up the stairs and down the hall, everyone else followed closely. We were eight feet from the staircase at the other end of the hall when she stopped at a door and knocked.
“Yeah?” A girl’s voice called.
Cara opened the door. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you, is that okay?”
I stepped into the doorway. Mia was a younger clone of her sister. Same brown hair, same hazel eyes, and same triangular face, though Mia’s bags were worse than Cara’s. The kid looked young, even for six.
Mia’s eyes went to the guys behind me. Her eyes widened. “Who are they?”
“They’re my friends,” I told her in a cheerful voice.
“They’re all boys,” Mia pointed out.
I smiled. “Tell me about it. I need to make more friends who are girls.” Mia giggled at the disdain in my voice. I looked over my shoulder.
“Why don’t my taller friends wait downstairs,” I suggested. Asher sent Mia a smile and a wink. Zeke met my eyes, his face hard. He really didn’t like it, but he followed Asher. Keith followed him. I turned back to Mia and Cara. “Can I come in and visit?”
Mia nodded and picked up one of her dolls.
I stepped inside and sat across from Mia on the rug. “Cara tells me you aren’t sleeping.”
Mia nodded.
“Can you tell me why?”
“’Cause the two little girls keep me up.” Mia put her doll in a plastic chair at her play table. She pretended to pour tea for her.
“Tell me about the little girls. How do they keep you awake?” I asked gently.
She met my eyes. “They don’t like it when I talk about them.”
Chills ran down my neck, and they were not the ‘a ghost is around’ kind. “Well, if I tell you a secret of mine, will you tell me about them?”
Mia seemed to consider it. Then she smiled and nodded.
I leaned in and whispered. “I can see ghosts.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”
“Yep, ever since I can remember,” I told her. “You want to know what else I can do?”
“What?” she asked eagerly.
“I help them cross over; help them get to Heaven.” These ghosts, though… I highly doubted they’d be going that way, even if there was a Heaven.
She eyed me. “Why?”
Her question surprised me. “Well, you see, once someone dies, their soul is supposed to move on. Without their body, they don’t belong here anymore. They need to go to Heaven; it’s where you’re supposed to go.” She seemed to think about it. “Now it’s your turn. What can you tell me about the little girls?”
She wiped her nose. “They look alike.” She poured another pretend cup of tea. “They protect me.”
I forced my face to stay neutral. “Really? From what?”
Mia handed me the cup of pretend tea. “The monster.”
“What monster, Mia?” I asked softly.
She looked down at the floor. “He scares me at night. The girls keep him away.”
“How do they do that?” I pretended to drink tea.
“They chase him away and play with me at night. He can’t come out during the day,” she explained. I blinked. That was new.
“What does the monster look like?”
She went to open her mouth, but her eyes shot to the door. “They’re coming.” She turned back to me. “I told you they don’t like me talking about them.”
I looked at the door and got to my feet. I moved into the hallway and looked around.
“Get out of the hall,” I told the guys. Ethan went into the bedroom, followed closely by Miles and Isaac.
“Red?”
Something was coming; I could feel it, as if someone had walked over my grave. It was there, just out of reach of my senses, but it was coming.
“Stay put,” I told him absently as I looked up and down the hall. The sun was setting outside, the hallway was almost dark. I flipped the hall lights on. They flickered but stayed on. Still nothing. I turned to look back toward the other staircase and froze.
Two little girls were standing near the third-floor staircase. Both had blond curls and wore blue dresses with white lace at the collar and wrists.