Jack:You could have been seriously hurt. This has to stop.
Me:Now you’re just being melodramatic. I’m fine.
Jack:No, you’re not fine. Talk to me.
Me:Not gonna happen.
I ignored whatever else Jack wanted to say with his eyes and stomped into the kitchen.
The past week had left me raw and vulnerable. A heart-to-heart with Jack wasn’t going to improve on those feelings.
“This is becoming ridiculous, Chiara.” Jack followed me, of course, sounding so reasonable. LikeIwas the idiot for not sharing my deep, dark feelings. “I have no intention of dragging the information from you. But you’re starting to put yourself in danger. Stop being so blasted stubborn.”
“Stop being so damn nosy.” I grabbed some orange juice from the fridge, slamming the door shut.
Jack made an exasperated sound. “How can Inotbe nosy? I have to watch you creep around the house every night, talking nonsense and scribbling things about lightning. What happens when you hurt yourself? Stop sleepwalking and I’ll stop asking questions.”
I gritted my teeth, straightened my shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “Jack, you are asking me to share deeply personal and emotionally charged experiences. Things I have never shared with anyone else.”
“That’s likely the root of the problem. You need to talk about it.”
“Talk about it?!” I gaped at him outraged. Was he listening to me atall? “What have you done to earn the right to my innermost fears and feelings?”
To his credit, Jack flinched.
“You tease and mock me every chance you get.” I might have been flailing my arms at this point.
“I mockyou?!” Jack’s voice rose. “Says the woman who matches me sarcastic comment for sarcastic comment. You dish it out as much as I do and you know it.” He jabbed a finger at me.
“I do not!”
“Of course, you do. Scathing repartee. It’s our thing.”
“It’s not our ‘thing.’ We don’t have a thing!” I grabbed a glass out of the cupboard.
His nostrils flared. Jack folded his arms across his chest, a furious Lord Knight expression on his face. “Try to deny it, Chiara. But wedefinitelyhave a thing.”
“No thing, Jack.” I waved a hand between us. A surge of anger and helplessness and frustration flooding me. “You’re trying to browbeat me into submission—”
“The hell I am. Like any friend, I want to help. Just because I’m a ghost doesn’t give you license to treat me like a nonentity.”
What?!“How dare you?! I’m just asking for some common courtesy.”
He huffed, leaning toward me. “Face it, Chiara. I’m little better than an unwanted house pet to you. Jack the Pet Ghost.”
I ignored the stab of guilt that accompanied his words. “Not even. And what about me? Silly, little Chiara. We all have to rescue her from her stupid decisions—”
“Youdomake stupid decisions.”
“I don’t answer to you.” I poured myself some juice.
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Woman, you would try the patience of a saint.”
“Good thing you’re a long ways from sainthood then.”
“Hah! Funny.” His head snapped upright. “Because you have to be dead to be a saint, is that it?”
“I am done having this conversation.” I put the juice bottle down, scowling at him.
