Page 38 of Haunting Phantom
“He’s my unfinished business, Damien. Not hers. Not yours, MINE!”
My strength increases, almost like someone’s helping me. That’s when I feel the cold creep across my spirit, a dark shadow dancing with my soul.
LEAVE!I command the board.HER!
Autumn chokes and gasps, clutching at her throat with desperate fingers.
“Eve, you gotta stop this! You’re hurting her,”Damien says, desperately trying to get me to break my hold on her.
“Good!”I shout, no longer focusing on the board, but the way Phantom’s grip on her wrist tightens, his knuckles whitening as if he’s trying to keep her grounded.
Part of me manages to break through, meeting her soul face to face in the recesses of her mind, taking advantage of her weakened state.
“Get out of my head!” she screams.
“Not until you leave him alone!”
But her eyes darken, and with all the strength she has, the door between us splinters until I’m ripped out of her mind, my spirit violently flinging in the opposite direction of her, landing a few feet away as that invisible force of protection circles her again.
She’s clutching the sage stick like it’s a talisman. Letting the smoke curl around her, gasping for breaths I successfully stole.
“I almost had her!”I shout with glee.“Damien, did you see—”
But Damien’s no longer in the field.
He’s back in the clubhouse, staring out the window with Krueger, their disappointment stabbing me in a heart that no longer beats.
Something inside me cracks like a dry twig. My knees fold, the world tilting outward as the separation starts, the tether between us breaking.
When I finally look up, Blake grasps her chin, looking deep into her eyes, seconds before his lips come down gently on hers.
“I’m here,” he says, and that two-word decree is absurdly powerful. It’s a rope thrown across a canyon, strengthening her, but weakening me. “Baby, I’m here for you.”
Phantom throws the planchette off the board, not knowing how dangerous it is. He’s doing it with the kind of protectiveness that should be illegal, cutting off my only connection to him.
“Eve, that’s enough!” His voice is a thunderclap, the bite like a bolt of lightning to the chest. “You will not touch her again,” Blake says directly to me. It’s like he can sense me spiraling, the ugly chaos turning to madness.
“She’s coming between us!”I cry, desperate to reel him back to me.
But he’s no longer focused on me. He’s focused on her, palms cupping her cheeks, his thumb swiping at her lower lip that trembles like a scared butterfly. The gesture is so small. So human.
And it breaks me.
“Are you—” Blake starts, then stops, because what do you ask? Are you okay? Are you whole? No one trusts the word okay in a world where the dead keep knocking.
Autumn manages a laugh that is more broken than anything triumphant. “Pippa’s gone,” she says confidently. “I felt her walk into the light, although she wasn’t exactly sure if that’s where she wanted to be. She still longs for you to love her, Eddie. I could feel her despair over losing you, but she did move on, choosing the light instead of the dark, even though she hated it.”
“And Eve?” Phantom questions.
Autumn frowns. “She’s not going to let you go, Phantom. She’s too obsessed with what you had. I don’t know if I can get her to cross over like Pippa; her unfinished business is more complicated than forgiveness.”
“What is her unfinished business?”
“You! Bastard. My unfinished business is you!”
But nobody can hear me. I’m screaming to the fence that separates us from the world, and the mountain silhouettes swallowing the last of the light. I’m screaming to the grass that’s wet beneath their feet, but I am somehow numb to.
Autumn shrugs. “I’m not exactly sure. I know it has something to do with you, but whatever her purpose is here, has yet to be revealed. Just do me a favor, please. Keep her away from me. I don’t like how she just made me feel, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to survive her if it happens again.”
