Page 36 of Death Match

Both living-Jade and I laughed.

“Looks like you have a lot more work to do,” she said.

He frowned and dropped his “guns.” “Help me clean it up before my dad finds out?”

Ricky wasn’t a bad-looking guy. He was younger, maybe twenty-three or twenty-five if I were to guess. He shared his father’s dark hair, which he spiked up with too much gel, and Puerto Rican caramel skin.

“Oh no. You didn’t want to wait for help to carry the crates, so now you don’t get help cleaning up after the mess,” living-Jade said.

“Bitch.” He smiled. “Guess I do deserve it.”

“Work out those muscles some more.”

“Shut up,” he snapped back playfully.

Jade shrugged and walked over to the pile of boxes beside the cellar steps. She opened the topmost one and started pulling out the packages of toilet paper inside.

“Why are you still wearing your jacket?” Ricky asked.

Jade paused but then started loading the toilet paper onto a shelf labeled Paper Products.

“I’m…cold,” Jade replied.

Lie. Another one.

But why?

“It’s summer. And eighty-seven degrees today,” Ricky said. He looked like he didn’t believe her either. “Probably over ninety back here.”

Jade glanced at a standup fan that was rotating but only pushing hot air around the room. She was looking for an excuse but wasn’t having any luck finding one.

“And you’re sweating. I can see your forehead from here.”

“Leave it alone, Ricky,” Jade warned him.

Ricky took a step toward her, his face suddenly pinching with anger. “He did it again. Didn’t he?”

“Don’t, Ricky.”

“Jade…”

He grabbed her jacket’s sleeve and tugged it down, revealing part of her pale shoulder and a ripe, purple bruise. As big as a fist.

I slapped a hand over my mouth and gasped.

Oh my God. That’s what she’d been hiding?

Had someone hurt her?

Hurt me?

When I glanced at my own shoulder, I found no bruises marking my skin. I felt a bit silly after checking, though, because I realized any wounds I had while alive wouldn’t show while I was in spirit form. That stuff didn’t cross over after death.

My attention snapped back toward other-Jade and Ricky.

Muscles rigid, she shrugged off Ricky’s grasp, causing him to step away defensively. “I said, leave it alone,” she grumbled through clenched teeth as she pulled her jacket back in place to conceal the bruises.

“Sorry,” he replied, hands up. “I didn’t mean—”

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