“He took Wren?” Roxi looked horrified.
“Again?” asked Gage. “Didn’t Bent take her, too?”
I sighed. My sister was primo hostage material for any hostile ghost. “Yeah, he did. Look, she’s not stupid. She was lonely. All she wanted was a friend, and he took advantage of that.” I didn’t have to look at Kevin to know he felt guilty.
“What’s his endgame?” Mace asked, hands in his pockets.
“Crossing over, general terror, destroying my family and probably eventual world domination.”
“Crossing over?” Gage leaned against the hood of Ben’s car. “You mean, like, coming back to life?”
“No. He’ll be a ghost that exists on this plane. He’ll be seen and heard—felt. And he’ll do it with all the anger and insanity a ghost his age has built up.”
Mace frowned. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m thinking about setting fire to the stage so the concert has to be canceled.”
My gaze locked with his. He knew that would make keeping my promise to Joe practically impossible, not to mention the risk he’d be taking. “Not an option,” I said. If anyone was going to risk getting arrested, hurt or even killed, it was me, and no one else.
Roxi pulled a mini candy bar from her purse, unwrapped it and shoved it into her mouth. She had a whole bag in there. I held out my hand for one. “We have to stop him, then.” She chewed some more and slapped candy into my palm. “We just salt and burn him, right? Once we find him?”
I unwrapped the chocolate. “It’s not that simple. Wren thinks his bones are in the basement of the residence Noah stayed in when he was a patient at Haven Crest.”
“How did his bones get into the cellar?” This came from Ben as he draped his jacket over my shivering shoulders. Ohmygoditwassowarm. I shoved the candy into my mouth. My hands were dirty. Grave dust. Gross. But I didn’t spit out the bar.
“Me,” confessed Kevin, stepping forward. “Noah’s my ancestor and also a medium. Apparently that makes it easy for him to possess me. He used me to move his bones.”
Mace gave him a hard look. “You’re just fucking up all over the place, aren’t you?”
I scowled at him. “Hey. It’s not his fault. Kevin’s in just as much danger as Wren and I are.” If Noah decided he needed a body again, Kevin would be the one he came for. “I need Kevin to help deal with any ghosts that come our way, especially with Wren working the crowd at Haven Crest. The two of you can fight later. Now let’s get inside.”
They all followed after Ben and me, and I tried to ignore the twinge of guilt I felt for chastising Mace.
Inside the house, I ran upstairs to clean up and change while Nan played doting hostess. She seemed to really like my friends—especially the boys, because they ate everything she put in front of them. Seriously, there had been times when I thought Gage hadn’t eaten for a week before coming over.
When I came back down in leggings and an oversized sweater, I found Ben at the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
He took my head in both of his hands and stared at me for a couple of heartbeats before kissing me. He tasted like cookie. I smiled against his lips.
“Are you okay?” he asked when we finally drew apart. His dark eyes were bright with concern. “Is Wren?”
I nodded. “We’ve been better. This guy really played her. I want to torch him just for that.”
“How can we prepare when we don’t know what we’re preparing for? I don’t like the idea of you going up against this guy.”
He was worried about me. Most of my friends seemed to think I had all the answers. I appreciated their confidence, but knowing that someone cared about me and my well-being was awesome. If anything happened and Wren couldn’t be with us, at least I knew Ben had my back.
“I guess we’ll just have to prepare based on what we do know, and then multiply it by ten.” I took his hand. “Come on, let’s get to work. We’re running low on time.”
Before getting to the séance, the bunch of us gathered around the dining room table—upon which Nan had laid out a plethora of snacks. She seemed surprised when I asked her if she wanted to brainstorm with us.
“I would, yes.” She sat down at the other end of the table, so that she and I were foot and head, respectively. A red twin and a white, as it should be.
I had a notebook in front of me—I worked better on paper. Gage liked to put everything on his laptop, but I found it hard to concentrate and type at the same time.
I filled everyone in on Noah’s backstory—about his sister and Emily and how he’d sworn revenge. I told them about him setting up Alys so she’d get sent to the void for killing her own kind. Then I told them about how he’d infected Wren with part of his energy so she would suffer if she wasn’t with him.