Page 114 of Half Dead

“So stubborn,” I teased.

He leaned over and brushed his lips against mine. “I’ll return to the club for a bit. I can see you need your rest, and the others will be eager for an update.”

I slumped forward. “I’ll call you when I wake up.”

“Don’t wait for a respectable hour. I don’t mind if it’s two a.m., I’ll drive straight over.” A lull followed his statement, and I realized my eyelids had grown too heavy to open them. A pair of powerful arms lifted my body from the chair and carried me upstairs. By the time Kane placed me under the covers, I was fast asleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After a blissfully dreamless power nap,I rose in search of Ray. I found him on the front porch, seated in the rocking chair as he gazed at the twinkling lights of Fairhaven below.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

He lifted his head to look at me. “Getting there.”

“Want to talk about it?”

He shrugged. “Talking isn’t going to change anything.”

I leaned against the wall beside him. “Might make you feel better.”

“I don’t think anything can.”

“I get it. You feel scared of the unknown.” If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here now. Ray would’ve opted to cross over with the other ghosts when I first moved into the Castle and gave him the option.

He rocked in the chair. “Not just scared. Selfish, and I’m mad at myself for feeling that way, but I can’t seem to stop.”

His response surprised me. “Why selfish?”

“Because I can see that it’s best for my family to go, yet I still want them to stay.”

“Wanting to stay close to the family you love doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human.”

“I’m dead, Lorelei. It isn’t fair to want them to live their lives on my terms.”

“They’re not, nor are you making them. If you’d told Alicia not to go, then I might call you selfish.”

Ray rocked back to regard me. “Do you think I should go with them?”

“Only you can answer that.”

“I wasn’t being dramatic earlier. I meant what I asked. What if they decide to move again in a few years? Are they supposed to call you so you can command me to move again? What happens when Alicia goes off to college?”

I patted his shoulder. “You’re asking the right questions but try not to let them overwhelm you.”

“I feel like my life is falling apart all over again.”

“Again?”

“It’s how I felt when I first realized I was dead.”

“Well, your life had fallen apart then, but this is different.”

“How?”

“Because it’s Alicia’s life, not yours. And Renee’s and Hakeem’s.”

“But not mine,” he said quietly.

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