The two girls—one a blonde and the other a brunette—stood close together just inside the door. “We shouldn’t be here,” the brunette said. “I feel like I’m being watched.”
Nice observation, Veronica Mars, I thought.
“Yeah,” the blonde joined in. “It feels disrespectful.”
Noah and I exchanged glances. I could tell he was surprised to hear that sentiment from someone who was alive, or a “breather,” as some of the dead rudely referred to them.
“Why are they here?” demanded Miss April. She’d just calmed down, and now she looked angry enough to manifest again.
“Did you hear that?” one of the boys asked. He had red hair and freckles and a friendly face.
“Hear what?” Stompy Boots asked.
His friend looked around. His gaze fell upon the general area where Miss April stood, but it didn’t focus. “I thought I heard a voice.”
“You’re trippin’,” said yet another boy with dark skin and a shaved head. “You need to stop watching all those Japanese horror movies. There’s nothing here.” But his gaze was nervous as he glanced around.
The ghosts pulled together, forming a horseshoe around the young people. We watched the living with a shared curiosity that ranged from benign to openly hostile as they treated the building as something to which they had a right.
Stompy Boots stood in the middle of the foyer, hands on his narrow hips. The hoodie he wore looked to be three sizes too big for him. “This will be great. It’s far enough away from the stage that no one will see us, but close enough that when they start letting people in we’ll be able to get up front.”
“What time on Wednesday?” asked the fourth boy, who looked a bit out of place with his dyed black hair and piercings.
“Just before five,” Stompy said. “There’ll still be a lot of people working here, but it will be getting dark, so we should be able to sneak in here no problem. We’ll spend the night and get so close Eddie’s sweat will soak us.”
That really didn’t sound appealing—I didn’t care who this Eddie was. I assumed he was a member of Dead Babies. Even with that assumption I failed to see the appeal in getting covered in a waste product from his body.
“They say they’re going to spend the night!” Miss April turned wide, angry eyes toward Noah. “What are we going to do?”
Stompy walked up to what used to be the front desk and hopped up onto it, dangling his legs over the side, kicking his feet against it. “This place definitely has enough room for a dozen people. We can have a party after the concert. Harris says his older sister can score us some Molly. I doubt security can even see this place from the road.”
A sound of opposition rose up around me; the ghosts of Acton Hall turned to Noah for a solution. He was their leader, whether he wanted the job or not. The girls in the doorway pressed closer together, their nervous gazes darting about the hall.
“I won’t allow humans to take over and further damage our home,” he told them. “Wren, you may want to leave.”
When I looked at him, my brow raised, he continued, “I intend to rid us of these intruders by whatever means necessary. I know you have living friends, and this might make you uncomfortable.”
I did have living friends. And we’d met because they had been foolish like this lot, poking about where they shouldn’t and being disrespectful of the spirits there. But they’d also crossed paths with a very, very malicious ghost who’d tried to kill them. Noah wasn’t going to hurt anyone; he only meant to scare them away. People who have been scared by ghosts tend not to mess with them again.
I’d be doing these kids a favor, really.
I smiled at him. “I’m with you,” I said. Oh! The smile he gave me in return was delicious.
Noah turned to the gathered spirits. “Be gentle, my friends.” His voice rang through the hall. I noticed one of the girls looked up, as though she heard it; one of the boys, too.
“Make certain they never come back!” he cried, and then manifested in front of me. Dear God.
He was terrifying.
He was monstrous.
He was gorgeous.
As the rest of the ghosts manifested, as well—and the screams started—I felt my own humanity slip away like pulling the sheet off a bed. I let my true nature take over for the second time that day, and as I swooped toward the screaming brunette, I smiled.
I was free.
LARK
There was a dead man in my English class.
I watched him as he paced the front of the room reciting Marc Antony’s funeral speech from Julius Caesar. It was difficult to hear what the living teacher—a substitute named Miss Chaisson—was saying over his booming voice. I was okay with that, as he was much more interesting. Miss Chaisson had to read from the play, and based on her performance, I’d say she hadn’t much more experience with the subject matter than her students. As for her enthusiasm, that was about on par.