Still chewing, Wyatt knocked on his wooden desk and then crossed his fingers.
“Well, after getting a taste of your world, I can see why you’d rather work on computers all day.”
He licked chocolate off his palm. “Just because you’re born into a gift doesn’t mean you have to use it. It’s a fallback plan. Unlike most, I’ve got options. Not all Gravewalkers do.”
Blue considered what a Gravewalker’s life must have been like. “Have you ever seen family members? I bet that’s rough,” she added, thinking about the death of her sons. She wasn’t sure whether seeing their spirits would be a blessing or a curse.
Wyatt closed the flap on the box and tossed it back into the drawer. “Now I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Sorry—you don’t have to answer. I can appreciate how hard it would be now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s not pretty.”
“No, it’s not.” He rested one elbow on the armrest and propped his fist against his cheek. “If you ever die, don’t linger behind. Not for anyone.”
Blue pondered that advice. Keystone had a code about their past being private, but it was hard to let a remark like that slide. It was up to them how much they chose to hide or conceal from one another. She had no desire to share details about her dead children to anyone she knew. There was a before and after version of herself, and she suspected that was the case with everyone in the house. Wyatt was an enigma, however. He had bouts of depression every so often, but mostly he was an easygoing guy with insane computer skills, a flirtatious attitude, and a bottomless stomach. The fact they lived in a massive mansion where he had to walk long distances and climb stairs contributed to his healthy weight.
He scratched underneath his grey beanie, which matched his cotton shirt. “A long time ago, I met a girl. In a nutshell, I completely fucked up my entire life and lost it all. I had no means to support myself, no home, no money, no prospects. I had plans to marry her.” Wyatt turned toward his desk and lightly rocked the chair. “We used to live in an apartment. She was an artist. Had all these paintings hanging on the walls she wanted to sell someday in her own store. This was before the internet. Now people can sell anything online.”
“Was she a Gravewalker too?”
He slowly pulled off his hat. “No. She was human.”
Blue’s eyebrows arched in surprise. Being a Gravewalker, Wyatt didn’t have much reverence when it came to death, and he never spoke highly of humans any more than the rest of them. Why would a Gravewalker, who could live up to a thousand years, settle for a human with finite time?
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, as if reading her mind. “It just happened. We met, and it was like two magnets coming together.”
“And then she left you when you lost your home,” Blue said, trying to piece it together without asking what he had done to lose everything.
“I wish,” he muttered under his breath. “We bounced around to a few places—people I knew. But nobody could keep us for long. I couldn’t find work doing Gravewalker stuff since I didn’t have an established reputation. The dead wanted to work with me more than the living did. Then she surprised me with a cheap studio apartment. Sold all her paintings. Said we’d make it through anything together.” Wyatt suddenly rolled his chair back. “We didn’t make it through cancer.”
Blue’s stomach dropped. She knew about human diseases but had never seen what that looked like.
“If I hadn’t lost everything, maybe she’d still be alive. Anyhow, it only got worse when she died.” He rubbed at the tattoo on his knuckles and heaved a sigh. “When her spirit saw me, she didn’t want to leave. She stayed behind for me, and I spent years watching her slowly go mad. That’s what time does to a ghost—it turns their memories into SpaghettiOs. Eventually she forgot me. She forgot herself. She forgot us. That was almost as bad as the cancer.” Wyatt snatched up Shepherd’s note and unhooked his laptop, tucking it under his arm. “Don’t ever linger. Go into the light, follow the voices—whatever. Just go. I never had to watch any of my family stay behind. Gravewalkers know better.”
Blue watched him stand up in those ridiculous slippers. Watching his lover’s spirit waste away must have been devastating. And she was probably still out there somewhere, still wandering, still uncertain who she was or where she was supposed to be.
“Well, lesson learned,” he said. “I don’t get mixed up with humans anymore, and I’m not the marrying kind. That’ll never change. Suits me fine. I like the company of women, but I’ve been punished enough.” Wyatt heaved another sigh and shuffled away. “I’m gonna go put my tunes on. If Viktor comes back in here, tell him I’m in my room, working.”
Blue understood exactly where he was coming from. People undervalued friendship, solitude, and purpose. Your life is never enough in someone else’s eyes. She’d suffered a great loss and learned her time was better spent serving others. Apparently Wyatt Blessing felt the same.
When he reached the door, she called out, “Wyatt?”
He clutched the doorjamb.
“What was her name?”
Wyatt turned his head, showing her his profile. “Dawn. Her name was Dawn.”
CHAPTER8
Afew days had passed since Viktor relayed to Mr. X the reward info. We were on high alert, ready to move at a moment’s notice. The gas tanks were full, the weapons were cleaned and sharpened, and we were all on edge. Viktor couldn’t formulate a strategy since we were still waiting on Mr. X’s reply with no idea where this job would take us. We slept in our clothes and kept our phones on us at all times. Wyatt was confident his role wouldn’t take him out of the house, let alone his office.
I couldn’t take watchingGhostbustersanother minute longer, not with Wyatt giving a dissertation on the impossibility of sucking a soul into a positron collider. So I left his office and headed downstairs.
Turning a corner, Shepherd slammed into me, and I dropped my orange soda.
“What the hell?” I raked him over as I picked up the plastic bottle. “Now it’s gonna go flat.”
He blew out a breath, his chest glistening with sweat. Shepherd’s tattoo collection was as impressive as his scar collection. The phoenix on his right arm spread onto his chest and back, the black ink extremely detailed. He had a lover’s knot on the back of his neck and a compass with Hunter’s name on his left inside forearm. I’d never spotted our Keystone tattoo, so I presumed that, like Christian, he’d put it somewhere below the waist.
