But there was more. She’d been joined by two other…entities. Ghosts, I guessed, but these weren’t what I was used to. If I never saw anything like them again, it would be too soon.
One was a man whose coloring was shades of brown, looking dusty and old, with an elongated neck that bent to one side as if it was dislocated. He bent at the waist, making his head almost look like it wasn’t part of his body, like he was holding it to the side. He kept ramming said head into the side of the dreaming man’s back. Hard.
The last spirit was the worst, by far. The torso was missing huge chunks from all over his body. Like he’d been ravaged on by an animal, chewed up and spit out, and this was all that was left. But it was his mouth, dear goddess, his mouth, opened wide and full of black, pointy, razor-like teeth. He stepped back to observe Ego, then he leaned down and bit some part of his body. In the moments we watched, he’d repeated the whole process four times, first biting Ego’s arm, then his leg, his elbow, and then his hand.
As each one of them fucked with him, Ego showed more signs of distress, but he couldn’t see them, didn’t know they were there, and damned if I had even one idea of how to help.
Standing back, I dragged Sky by the waist farther down the hall to make sure there was no way they’d see or hear us. “We’ve gotta get outta here,” I hissed. “With us together, they’ll see us. If they do to us what they’re doing to him, we’re screwed.”
Sky’s jaw jutted out, and he narrowed his eyes. “No. We’re not leaving him.”
“Sky, we don’t know what to do. After we wake up, we?—”
He smacked my pec—hard. “I’m not leaving him.” Tears popped into his eyes. “Please don’t ask me to desert him.”
My stomach sank. By the tone of his voice and his tears, it was obvious how much this guy meant to him. “I get it, he’s your client, but?—”
Skylar grabbed my shoulders. “He’s not my client. Well, he is, but more importantly, he’s my cousin.”
The world went out of line, distorted, then came back into focus, giving me a fresh perspective. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said, wiping at his nose. “I wanted to see if anyone would guess, and you never came over, so you never met him, and he’s my cousin, and now he’s being… What? Tortured? Are they trying to make him lose his mind?”
Running a hand through my hair, I tried to think. Sky was right, we couldn’t leave him. If his cousin was in any way hurt or mentally unstable tomorrow, Sky would never forgive himself. But I also didn’t know what to do.
“Youuuuu,” came a low creaky voice. Not male, not female, scratchy and gruff.
I pushed Sky behind me, andshewas back by the entrance. The spooky lady. She lifted a finger and pointed, goop sliding off her face. We turned and ran.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Skylar
“Ahhh!!!!”I screamed. I figured we’d blown past tiptoeing around those…those…those spookies. They were horrifying, terrible evilness, and I wanted nothing to do with them.
I also wasn’t leaving my cousin here to deal with them alone. Technically, I knew he wasn’t. I knew he couldn’t even see them. But who knew what they were doing to his mental state or how their teeth and strikes and whatever might be on the nasty, nasty lady’s tongue might impact him.
No. Sorry. Uh-huh. He’d been deserted by family enough in this lifetime. I wouldn’t be adding to that list—ever.
“Hurry, Sky,” King said, looking over his shoulder.
His legs were so much longer than mine, and as much as he didn’t consider himself athletic, he was forever hiking. Me, not so much. I practiced yoga and lifted some light weights, but I’d been blessed with an amazing metabolism, so I’d never taken fitness too seriously. Hell, I did yoga for the meditation and relaxation more than anything else.
The lady was still behind us. Unlike Buck and Harry or Stevie, she didn’t seem able to pop in and out, but she floated pretty damn fast. We skidded at the end of a hall, made a left, and kept going. I knew we were headed for what would be Ego’s master bedroom, but like the rest of the place, it remained undecorated.
As soon as we ran into the room, I stopped quickly, causing King’s long legs to trip over me. Ego had moved rooms. He was sitting on a bed in a room that looked like it had been decorated for a fourteen-year-old teenybopper. The kind who listened to his music. If he thought I’d let this design?—
“Skylar!!!” King yelled, yanking me out of the way before Lady Spooky came in behind me with outstretched arms. We dove behind a bubble gum pink chaise lounge, and she spun toward us.
Meanwhile, over on the bed, I saw the broken neck dude and piranha boy cuddled up to either side of my cousin like they were his lovers. Aggressive ones. They were still fucking with him, poking and prodding and nibbling.Gross.How did they get here in a blink when she didn’t? Did she enjoy the thrill of the chase?
Our pursuer had drawn their attention, though, and now they looked curiously in our direction.
Shit. Shit. Shit.“What do we do?”
“Try not to die,” he said, sounding as frustrated and terrified as I felt. If there was one thing I knew, it was that I didn’t want Lady Spooky’s tongue anywhere near me.
