Page 89 of Chasing Your Ghost

“Tell her I love her too,” Asher asked, looking no less confused but happy nonetheless.

Riley smiled at him. “He says he loves you too.”

“Oh my god,” Ella murmured again before sniffing. “This is crazy. Amazing, but crazy.”

Riley chuckled. “We’ll see you soon, okay.”

“Yes. I’ll call the others.” She sounded reluctant to hang up, but she did, probably feeling all kinds of conflicting emotions: ecstatic that Asher wasn’t gone, but disappointed that she still wouldn’t be able to see or hear him, and relieved that he hadn’t moved on, but worried because they still knew nothing.

Riley was going through a similar emotional rollercoaster, though the positive emotions seemed to be winning over the negative. At least for the moment.

“So, you told my friends you can see me,” Asher said. His voice lifted at the end to make it a question.

Riley nodded. “Remember when I passed out for a second in the kitchen?”

He winced. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Firstly, that wasn’t your fault,” she insisted. “And secondly, when Noah caught me, I may have, uh—” Her cheeks warmed, and she suddenly couldn’t meet his gaze. “I may have whispered your name.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyes widening. “I’m guessing he had some questions after that?”

Riley huffed out a laugh. “Oh, yeah, but with that and what Edith said about the books I’d ordered, he figured it out himself. He just needed me to confirm his theory wasn’t completely insane.”

“And then you told Ella and Chris?”

“In all honesty, I didn’t want to tell them, but Noah insisted on telling Chris,” she explained. “He wore me down, and I decided to bring Ella in on it, too, since I knew you’d want that.”

“How did they take it?”

“Chris didn’t believe it at first, but he came around after Ella jumped in and told us she could dreamwalk.”

“Right. Dreamwalking. She mentioned that.” He opened and closed his mouth, looking lost for words. “What the hell does that mean?”

Riley explained it to him, knowing she was probably doing a much poorer job of explaining it than Ella would be able to. But she told him the gist of it, making sure to emphasize that his friend had been trying to find him since he’d gone missing despite what it might have looked like to others.

“I had no idea she was dealing with all of that,” Asher said once she’d finished speaking. “I mean, I knew her nightmares were bad, but this is even worse than I thought.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “No wonder she was always asking me to come over. I’d also be terrified if I saw stuff like that.”

“Anyone would,” Riley agreed. “Especially if they live alone,” she added, thinking of how Ella’s parents were barely around. It was no wonder she’d needed her friend.

Asher nodded. “I hate her parents even more now.”

“I mean, they don’t know about what she can do, but yeah, they’re still the worst for leaving her alone to deal with all of this.”

He sat on the edge of her bed and ran his hands over his face. “What did she mean when she said she could feel me but got stuck trying to get to me?”

“If someone’s on her mind when she dreamwalks, she can sense them and gets drawn to them. But with you, she’s either been pulled to where your spirit is and can’t see you, or she gets blocked by something when you’re back in your body.”

He closed his eyes. “Which means she can’t tell us where I’m being kept,” he said, understanding how stuck they were even with Ella’s abilities in their arsenal.

She sat next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out,” she promised, but the words felt empty.

He wrapped his arm around her, and she burrowed further into his side. “And if we don’t?”

She didn’t say it, but they both knew what would happen if they couldn’t find him in time. They were fighting for his life. If they lost, there would be no more surprise discoveries and no more hopeful plans. It would be over, and this time, it would be for good.

24

“Tell her she can stop apologizing now,” Asher asked. His eyes rolled in exasperation, but his expression was soft with affection. “Me getting kidnapped was not her fault.”

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