Page 62 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
My father appeared just behind Evan. I leaned around Evan’s giant, muscular form to see him. “Dad, how you doing?”
Evan said, “What the fuck?” just as my dad blew a raspberry at me.
“Hey kiddo.” Dad winked.
I glanced back at Evan who was staring at me with a wrinkled brow. “My dad’s a ghost.”
Evan shook his head. “No.” He started to laugh. He pushed his hands through his hair. “No. Really? Come on.”
Evan’s skepticism was normal. Since only Darklights could see them, and since we were so damn rare, ghosts were not something the masses actually believed in. They weren’t something taught in school. They’d been ‘debunked’ by scholars. When Dad had first appeared, I’d had to scour the internet for a tiny diary by a dead Darklight in order to find anything documented in the last century about ghosts. It seemed like the rest of my kind didn’t want to be deemed insane. But the fact that Evan fucking Weston, who’d known me since basically the day I was born, didn’t believe me—that right there pissed me off. It made me want to punch him in the nads. I pursed my lips and said, “Dad, possess him.”
Evan’s eyes immediately widened. “Hayley—”
But he didn’t get another word out before Dad side-stepped into Evan’s body. His own form disappeared, and only Evan was left, blinking at me.
“How about a bow? Can you handle that, dad?” I asked.
Evan’s eyes widened and he bent from the waist as he said, “What the fuck!” He wrenched back up. But clearly, he hadn’t bent forward on his own. That was all Dad’s doing.
“Can you make him stand on one foot?” I asked.
Evan’s right foot lifted about a quarter inch off the ground before he slammed it back down.
“Still don’t believe my dad’s a ghost? Dad, make him smack himself on the face.”
Evan’s hand lifted, but the smack never came. His hand just vibrated in midair until I saw my dad hop to the side, exiting Evan’s body like he was hopping off a bicycle.
Dad was breathing hard. “That possession stuff is hard work.” He put a hand on his chest, like he’d just gone running.
“But you’re improving,” I told him. “Nice job.”
Evan glanced at me, and then around the clearing, his eyes searching, his chest heaving. “What the hell was that?”
“Ghosts exist on a wavelength only Darklights—”
Evan shook his head and held up a hand. “I get that. I’ll have questions later … but I get that. But I didn’t know your dad … Mr. Dunemark?”
Dad reached out and tried to shake Evan’s hand. That just made Evan yank his hand back as though he’d been frozen. Evan stared at his hand, then up at me, and back at his hand.
Apparently, ghosts reduced him to a speechless four-year-old. I didn’t have time for that.
“Dad, were Matthew and Evan high that night they tried the Unnatural spell?”
“What?” My dad looked at me and his expression fell. I could literally see the memories fade as his brow lowered and his mouth drew up into a bow.
My heart crackled like tissue paper getting carelessly squashed and tossed aside. My eyes glossed. “Dad?”
Dad faded from sight, the confusion never leaving his features.
“Dad?” I tried to call him back, but he didn’t return. My fist went over my chest and I just had to stand still for a second, my hand keeping my emotions crushed inside so that they wouldn’t spill out and let Evan witness another breakdown.
A minute later, Evan came over and threaded his fingers through mine. He just stood like that, for a second, holding my hand, keeping me from floating away. And then he asked, “Did he leave?”
I nodded. “Sometimes he just … forgets things. One minute he’s him. The next …”
Evan’s hug swallowed me up in warmth and tenderness. I let my head rest against his torso, and I hugged him back for all I was worth until the loneliness receded. When I pulled away, I looked up at him. “Dad’s lab had just discovered a cure for vampirism before he died. It’s at the Pinnacle. I’m going to steal it. And cure him.”
Evan didn’t even blink. “I’m in.”
