“How is doing any of this getting revenge on Emily? She doesn’t know me or Lark. Do you really think hurting us will hurt her?”
“It’s not about Emily,” he replied smoothly. “It’s about you and your kind, and putting an end to it entirely. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to convince Alys to kill your grandmother’s twin while the two of them were still in the womb? It was very difficult, but it worked out. I thought maybe that would be the end of you, but you’re like syphilis—you just keep coming back.”
There was a little laughter at this.
I held out my arms and tried to ignore that these people who I’d thought were my friends were the same ones laughing at me now. And I absolutely refused to let him see that I hadn’t known Nan was a twin, or that the other was dead—and not Dead Born.
“What about this?” I asked, referring to the black veins. “How does this fit into your plan?”
“You and I are linked now, my dear.” He leaned forward, plaster dust falling off him like snow. “I can’t tell you how honored I am to have been your first merge.” God, he made it sound...dirty.
I met his gaze. “But you weren’t. Kevin was.”
Hate flickered in his eyes. Good. If I could despise and mock him, then I couldn’t love him, and I had been well on my way to feeling that very emotion. The bastard.
Noah straightened. “Regardless. I put some of my energy into you and took some of yours into me. We’re connected now. Always. If you’re away from me for too long, you’ll start to feel sick and aggressive. It won’t be long before you start to feel what I feel, want what I want. You see, turning you into my slave will be my final revenge on Emily Murray.”
His slave? Now I was the one arching an eyebrow. “You know my sister will destroy me before she lets that happen.”
An arrogant smile tilted the corners of his mouth. “She won’t live long enough. An old friend of mine is going to be calling on your sister a little later. He’ll take care of her.”
I actually laughed. “If you think ‘taking care’ of my sister will be that easy, you’re in for a nasty shock.”
“If he doesn’t get the job done, I know who will.”
“Am I supposed to guess who you mean?”
“I would think it’s obvious. By the time I’ve put my plans into motion on All Hallows’ Eve, I will have the perfect assassin under my full control. You.”
LARK
The fire pit was soaked and so was I.
I wound the garden hose back into its spool and ran back to where Kevin stood, watching me like he couldn’t quite understand what I was doing.
“That wasn’t Noah’s skull,” I told him.
His face fell. It was a terrible, horrified expression that made my throat tight. “He got me to hide other bones, too? So someone else would suffer if we found them?”
“Seems that way,” I said, picking up a pair of long-handled tongs used for making s’mores. I tried to keep all emotion from my voice. “The text from Wren said it was the wrong skull and to stop. She also said that what I was looking for was in the basement of the house. Since she sucks at being cryptic, I’m assuming that means Noah’s remains are in the cellar of the men’s residence at Haven Crest.”
He ran a hand through his already effed-up hair. “How the hell are we supposed to get them if he’s practically sitting on them?” His brows came together in an anguished frown as he looked at the fire pit. “Why do that to another ghost?”
“To punish them. To mess with me. Now he knows that I’d burn him, and he wants me to know he’s smarter than I am. I have to agree with him. I should never have assumed that skull was his just because he used you to dispose of it.”
Kevin slumped into a nearby wooden chair as I bent over the charcoal soup that was the fire pit. “I don’t remember going to Haven Crest.”
“You only remembered the park because he left you there.” I reached out with the tongs and snagged the skull by the jaw. “He’s a smart bastard.”
His gaze was on our charred and gruesome companion. “Did we just commit ghost murder?”
I shook my head. “More like aggravated assault, I think.” I carried the skull—in the tongs—to an empty planter and put it inside.
We’d just started for the house when two cars pulled into the driveway—Ben’s and Mace’s. Ben had Gage and Roxi with him. Mace was alone. It was weird not to have Sarah as part of the group, but I can’t say I was too upset that she was gone.
“What’s up?” Gage asked as he approached. “Is that a skull in the planter?”
“Yep,” I replied. “We thought it was Noah’s. It wasn’t.”
Ben walked up beside me and put his arm around me. “How did you figure that out?”
“Wren just so happened to be with the ghost whose head burst into flames. She sent me a text, but I could feel her panic, too.”
“That’s a sneaky ghost,” Gage remarked, doing what he always did—stating the obvious.
I nodded. “He is, but we’re going to figure out how to blitz the douche bag and get my sister back.”