Page 15 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

It did no good.

Any time he was hungry, he found them.

He was like a starving raccoon, muttering away, his pink curls tucked inside a baseball cap that had the logo of a sports team I didn’t care to recognize on it. After he choked his way through a few more bowls, instead of being happy he had located the missing cereal, fifteen minutes later he would be settled on his bed covered in crumbs, crying.

Again.

He wandered around the apartment like a fluffy pink zombie-snail oozing emotion behind him. Sad, sad, sad, he leaked as he stared morosely at the walls and popped painkillers like candy every time I commanded him to. The swelling in his face was going away. Maybe it was the salt from his tears. Keeping track of days was difficult for me. Keeping track of people’s moods was even harder.

I hadn’t been the most emotionally in-tune person even when I was alive.

In fact, I actively avoided emotion.

It was oftentimes confusing. People’s faces said one thing, but their words said another. Traps. Everywhere. It was easier to understand expressions when I’d known someone for a long time, but I hadn’t had that luxury since before my death. That was why, at first, Luca’s tears made me uneasy. I tried to ignore them, but that soon became impossible. Especially on days he’d freeze, stare out the window, and cease to function for what felt like hours at a time. (Not that I’d call his normal moping and crying “functioning.”)

Even I was becoming concerned.

I didn’t care about him. At least that’s what I said to make myself feel better. I was paying attention because the more I observed—the more I learned about what made him tick—the easier it would be to take advantage of his weakness.

I’d already learned he was susceptible to basic superstition.

Lucky. That’s what I wanted him to think the necklace was. If it was lucky he wouldn’t throw it away. He’d covet it. Cherish it. Keep it safe. I’d laid the bread crumbs for him to follow, in the hopes that when I finally revealed myself he would be less frightened and more…complacent.

If he thought I was a lucky ghost there would be less fighting over what I planned to do. Positive manipulation at its finest. I could convince him, control him, lie—whatever I needed to get what I desired without handing him my secret. He’d believe me if it meant more twenty-dollar bills were slipped into the pockets of his horrible baggy jeans.

People were greedy.

That I could count on.

Maybe it would benefit me to figure out why he was so emotional?

But no.

I didn’t care enough for that.

It would still work.

It had to.

I just wished he’d stop crying long enough to notice the money I’d hidden in his sock drawer. If he was smart, he’d use it to replace his broken phone. I didn’t want to hold my breath for that though. Clearly, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. It had been days and he still hadn’t realized that I’d taken his body for a spin. Though, in his defense, robbing an ATM downtown had only taken an hour max.

One week in and I already knew that Luca was…useless. A dumb blond in a pink disguise, with a massive collection of painting supplies he never fucking used.

Perfect.

I wouldn’t feel bad about killing him.

* * *

“Look, I swear to god.” Luca’s voice echoed in the back of my mind as I slowly became conscious. Sometimes it was like that. Sucked into the darkness, my existence flickering like a candle in the wind until I’d gathered enough energy to appear. There was another way to bring me to the surface, but I refused to sink that low ever again. Even if it meant remaining inside the brutal grip of limbo.

It was cold there, in the Nothing.

Icy.

Uncomfortable.

When I was corporeal I hardly felt the temperature. Trapped in the Nothing, that changed. My senses were heightened, magnified by an emptiness so vast I lost all perception of myself. Immobile, I had no choice but to become one with the frost and bitter things, my essence fracturing like scattered glass while I waited for time to move again, and my pieces to gather. The cold was wicked but it wasn’t the worst part. The loss of time was. The disorientation. Weeks could pass, months, years and I’d never know it.

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