Page 59 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

“Oh.” Weird. “So are they…”

“Looking for me?”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” More blinking. Man. Talking to this guy was like pulling teeth sometimes. “So can we call them?”

“No.” His lips thinned, and I watched him in fascination as my thoughts whirred. None of this made any sense to me. If his family knew he was here, if they knew he needed help, if they were already looking for him, couldn’t we just ask? As much as I hated the idea of relying on anyone I also had no idea how we would accomplish this without some sort of outside influence.

I had hardly any money.

There was no time to earn more—and besides. I hadn’t painted anything new in months. My last painting now sat useless but pretty in the living room of that blond twink from the club.

“Why not?” I asked, because clearly Prudence wasn’t going to elaborate without a lot of poking from my end.

“Because they’ll stop me. I want to die and they’re desperately clinging to the fact that I’m here.”

Wow. It sounded so dark when he said it like that. But I figured there wasn’t a better way to describe it. I just…wow.

Macabre much?

“So that’s kaput.” My brow furrowed as something struck me, my eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait. How are you going to fulfill your end of the deal if you won’t talk to them?”

“After we’ve retrieved the password there will be no need to hide from them anymore. I’ll take you to the bank myself, and transfer the money. They’ll be too far away to stop me from doing what I need to do.”

That made sense. But also—

“If you can just walk into a bank and get money, why don’t we do that now?”

“I’m not going to risk it when it’s possible they could get my location from the transfer.”

“Oh.” So that was why he’d robbed the ATM all those weeks ago. Damn. Apparently even someone as put together as Prudence had things he was afraid of.

Also…I figured it was fair. Otherwise how would we ensure he got his end of the deal? The thought of Prudence dying still made me feel sick but I wasn’t about to tell him that. He deserved to make that choice. Even though honestly I wished he’d decide to stay so we could be whatever we were for longer, I understood that I had no idea what it was like to exist for him.

How long had he been dead?

What was that like? To exist without existing. Could he still feel things the way he had when he was alive? Had this cool-detached man always been like this? Or was his personality a side effect of dying?

In fact, how had he even died?

Why was he here?

I couldn’t shake the thought that what kept Prudence here wasn’t a blessing but a curse. He certainly didn’t seem happy about it. Not that he ever seemed particularly chipper. If I was being honest, the happiest I ever saw him get was when he was being mean to me (which I liked) or when he was popping rolls of Oreos like a shark on crack.

“They’re probably close to finding me,” Prudence added, crossing the room before he sat down on the bed. He was all effortless confidence, his legs sprawling wide to take up as much space as possible, his thick thighs filling out his jeans in a way that would make any man cry. Effortlessly commanding. Watching him relax atop my colorful comforter made my belly squirm happily.

I liked the fact he was becoming more comfortable around me. Even if being comfortable also went hand in hand with being a nosy shithead. I could clearly see where he’d been peeping through my paint supplies while I’d been out of the room. He hadn’t even bothered to shove the bin back under the bed, it just lay at his feet, torn open and rifled through. The empty canvases mocked me. My dirty laundry lay spread on the floor in accusation.

Prudence was totally unrepentant as I crossed my arms, and debated joining him on the bed.

“So we really are on a time crunch,” I tapped my lip in thought, mulling over our options.

“Do you have a car?” Prudence asked.

“Yes.” It was a clunker. The thing broke down more often than not, but despite the fact it spewed smoke and blasted music at random times loud enough to burst your eardrums—it was still a car. “It’s more of a death trap than a vehicle?”

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