Page 100 of Chasing Your Ghost

“I know you don’t understand, but I just can’t.” She pressed a hand against her forehead, her eyes pinching closed. “Please go.”

“But can’t he find you without you spiritwalking?” Riley asked, confused. “If you can find Asher that way, then he can find you whenever he wants, whether you’re spiritwalking or not.”

Ella sniffed. “That’s not how his ability works. Before he…attacked me, he told me his body could travel to any plane, not just the spirit one. But from what I gathered, he can’t find me if I’m on another plane or when he’s limited by the rules of the physical one. He knows I’m somewhere in Virginia, but he doesn’t know my last name or anything that could help him find me. As long as I stay on this plane, I’m safe.”

“Ella, you can’t be serious,” Chris seethed. “You can’t really be this selfish. Whoever that guy was, he isn’t going to be waiting around for you in the spirit plane three years later. And listen to yourself! From what you gathered, he can’t find you the way you can find Asher. It sounds like you don’t even know what he can do.”

“Shut up,” she murmured, shaking her head forcefully.

“Asher is your best friend,” Chris continued. “He would do anything for you, and you can’t even be bothered to do this one small thing to save his life!”

“You don’t know what it was like,” Ella roared back, any semblance of calm she’d had snapping. “He swore he’d find me again, and as soon as I go into the spirit plane, he’ll be able to do exactly that.” She was openly sobbing now, her shouted words ending with a stilted inhale.

“Ella,” Riley murmured, sympathy flooding her even as she struggled to come to terms with the decision she was making.

“Just get out,” Ella snapped, violently wiping her cheeks. “Get out!”

None of them looked happy about doing it, but they filtered out of the front door. Ella slammed the door behind them, her anger leaving them with a loud parting gift that enforced just how much she wanted them out of her house. The cloud-darkened sky seemed to mirror her emotion, hanging over their group like a threat.

“That went well,” Chris muttered when they reached Noah’s Jeep.

Noah swore under his breath and wiped his hands over his eyes. “We’re idiots. I’m an idiot. There’s no way Ella had anything to do with Asher going missing. She’s a lot of things, but a kidnapper isn’t one of them.” He tilted his head back. “I shouldn’t have accused her like that. Maybe if I hadn’t, she’d be more willing to help.”

Riley wrung her hands together, her gaze landing firmly on Asher. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I asked her nicely twice, and she was as adamantly against it then as she was just now,” she explained, hoping he would understand that she’d always been on his side, whether or not she’d kept Ella’s secret.

“So, what now?” Chris asked. “She’s the best chance we have of finding Asher, and we’re just going to leave and go back to square one?”

Riley let out an audible sigh. The sound mingled with a rumble of thunder from above. “I don’t know. Maybe we can come back tomorrow and see if we have better luck, but until then, we can keep reading those books and see if we can find anything else that could help us.”

Chris looked unconvinced by her plan, but he nodded. “Count me in.”

Noah looked back at Ella’s house, his brows pulling together before he returned his focus to Riley. “Me too.”

Riley looked to Asher, not sure what she was hoping to find, but the flat stare and disinterested shrug he sent her way wasn’t it. Though an ache set itself up in her chest at his cold reaction, she pushed away her feelings on the matter.

She knew she’d messed up and longed to try and explain herself to him again, but the most important thing was finding him. Her explanation and pleas could wait.

Still, after Noah and Chris had gotten into the Jeep, Riley couldn’t keep herself from stepping closer to him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Her words were met with a tight jaw and frigid silence. Asher didn’t even glance her way as he stepped through the back door of the car and settled into his seat. She blinked against the sting in her eyes and walked around to the other side.

The drive to the house was the kind of dead quiet that made Riley’s skin crawl with discomfort, but she dared not break it. They’d all allowed themselves to feel hope, and the disappointment over another failure and the disquiet over Ella’s unwillingness to help Asher had left a dark stain on them.

It clung to them unrelentingly, and as they sat in the pool house, the storm buffeting down on the small building, it was as though a black pall loomed over them, slowly leeching them of any emotions save for despair.

When Noah threw his book aside and told them he needed to go, none of them questioned him. Riley simply nodded distractedly, not even taking her eyes away from her page or so much as saying goodbye.

She assumed he was going to check on his mom, but Riley couldn’t have been more wrong. Neither she nor the others would have guessed it, but Noah drove away from his father’s house to go see Ella.

27

Noah wasn’t sure what he was doing or what he hoped to accomplish by doing it. He wasn’t sure of anything except his destination. But once he’d pulled into Ella’s driveway, he didn’t step out of his car. He simply stared at the house, his thoughts a jumbled mess and his emotions racing between fury, concern, regret, and confusion.

It was nothing new when it came to Ella Montgomery, but this time, Noah couldn’t let it go. He needed some answers. He needed to know that he hadn’t been entirely wrong about the girl he’d come to think of as his when he was barely old enough to look at girls that way.

He needed to understand why someone who claimed to be Asher’s best friend could be so cavalier about his disappearance that she’d gone for a manicure while the rest of them searched for him. He needed to understand how she could have changed so much since the time when they’d once been friends. He finally needed to put an end to the complex swirl of emotions she always managed to create in him.

His determination restored, Noah opened the car door and jumped out of his Jeep. The storm had long since ended, leaving only cool air and a fresh scent in the air, but his shoes squelched as he made his way across the sodden lawn to the path leading up to the front door of the house.

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