Page 22 of For One Night

“Who?” Silas asks.

“His name is Oscar, he’s a-”

“Pixie. Yeah, I know him. He’s easily startled, how do you get him to work with you?” Silas quirks an eyebrow.

“He gets scared easily? Oh! I love him already!” I shout, clapping my hands.

The boys ignore me but I see a small smile on each of their faces. They think I’m adorable.

“Well, last time he went underground for a while, I helped him protect the shack he was living in from intruders. I think he trusts me. He’s an odd one,” Elias explains.

We head out the door with Elias in the lead.

“Where are we meeting him?” I ask.

We are walking there so it can’t be very far. Still, my feet are starting to hurt. I’m used to floating everywhere.

“Don’t worry we are close. He wouldn’t want strangers near his home, so we are meeting at a bus stop near here.”

I guess he can sense my exhaustion through the bond. Going from a loner ghost to a girl with three bonded mates is strange.

I’ll deal with my new reality if I wake up tomorrow and I’m not a ghost. Otherwise, it seems like a waste of precious real body time.

We turn the corner and I see a lanky man with shaggy hair standing behind the bus stop sign. He’s trying to look nonchalant but failing miserably.

“Uh oh,” I groan.

“What?” Oz asks, instantly alert.

“I’ve haunted him.” I quickly defend myself by adding, “He had so much delicious fear!”

There’s no way I could forget this victim.

They all stop to stare at me in confusion. They’re looking at me like I’m an idiot with their eyebrows raised.

“So? He shouldn’t have any idea,” Elias points out. He speaks slowly, like I’m dense.

Normally, he’d be right.

“About that-” I start but I’m cut off.

Lanky man, who I guess is named Oscar, screams. He takes one look at me and runs in the other direction.

Even in this form I’m still feasting on fear to stay whole. It flies off him like candy from a pinata. I almost groan.

Oz speeds after him inhumanly fast. It’s a blur before he has him locked in his arms, facing us.

We walk over to join him and I can tell Oscar is trembling from here.

“What did you do to him?” Silas asks me.

“I’m sure it wasn’t hard, this man is perpetually scared. How does he recognize you?” Elias adds.

“Well, he was so afraid and it was close to Halloween, so I had a lot of juice. I materialized in the mirror behind him. He saw me.”

“How did you know you could do that?” Elias asks, sounding impressed.

“I don’t really know. My abilities come instinctively. I knew what I was capable of when I had enough power to do it,” I try to explain but I’m not sure I’m doing a good job.

---