“Good. I’m not offering it,” he says. “We all got baggage. This is not a place you end up when nothing bad’s ever happened to you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, debating. Then: “What happened to you?”
He crouches to pat the treadmill belt. “I’ll make you a deal. You run the entire distance without complaining, and maybe I’ll tell you.”
“What happens if I do complain?” I ask, trying to match his casual tone and failing.
“Then I’ll have to find other ways to keep your mouth busy,” he says.
“I wish I had something to throw at you right now,” I say.
I want to hate the flirting. I do. But there’s something disarming about the way he’s so easygoing, and he’s just so easy to talk to.
I climb onto the treadmill, gripping the handles as Griffin sets the speed. “Give me your worst.”
My legs give out the second I stumble off the belt, collapsing face down on the rubber mat.
Thismust be why Nico runs at 2 AM. When your body hurts this much, your brain doesn’t have the energy left over to do anything except focus on how sick you feel. I’d still rather drink my feelings than run from them, but I guess we all have our methods.
I guess Nico must not get sick after running because he runs all the time and is used to it, but it’s hard to imagine this evernothurting.
I’ll get there. Dad used to say pain is information, and the information it’s giving me now is that I’m out of shape. He told me this story from his second tour, when his Humvee flipped, and he had to crawl out on a dislocated shoulder to pull hisbuddy out of the wreck. He said he pretended his arm was talking to him, but he chose not to listen.
Griffin stands over me. He’s not even panting from his own workout. Jerk.
“Are you going to tell me your baggage now?” I ask, still face-down on the mat.
“Nope,” he says.
I mutter a curse into the strong-smelling rubber.
“You didwaytoo much complaining,” Griffin says.
I flip him the middle finger over my shoulder.
Once I’ve cleaned up, Donny gets me going on the not-as-physically-demanding portion of my job: reading.
“Consider it your crash course in everything we do here,” Donny says, and gives me a list handwritten on a piece of lined paper. “I do expect you to come to me with questions, or to Benjamin, as he is equally capable of answering them. Understanding the theory will keep you alive in the field.”
He shows me where to find each tome in the library. Each book is beautiful. Leatherbound with hand-stitched spines and binding that has been worn soft at the edges. Most of the books on the list are written by Donny himself, with a few research papers contributed by Benji.
I curl up in one of the wingback chairs with Bob on my lap, and turn on the green-shaded lamp to cast a yellow glow onto the first book:Donald Dellman’s Field Guide to Possessors and Other Spectral Entities.
I spend the rest of the day reading, only taking a break for lunch and to go for a walk with Bob outside so my brain has a chance to recharge. The book is dense but surprisingly readable.
By the time the sun has gone down and I get to the section on Possessors, my head feels full, but I can’t stop. Donny told me to read, so I’m going to read.
Damage to the host depends on the duration of possession. Possessions interrupted within the first week typically result in severe psychological trauma, but leave cognitive function largely intact.
Possessions lasting longer than two weeks can cause measurable changes to brain structure. The altered neural pathways become permanent fixtures, changing the host’s personality, emotional regulation, and impulse control. I’ve seen hosts emerge from long possessions with the emotional capacity of children, their prefrontal cortex essentially rewired by a consciousness that did not care what it was doing as long as it achieved its goal.These men and women can’t remember who they were before the possession began. Some become so afraid of their own minds that they withdraw, unable to trust their own thoughts or emotions. Others turn violent even after the entity has been removed, because the entity’s rage is permanently encoded into their neural architecture.
Marcus Walsh would have woken up in a hospital bed, trying to piece together why there were so many bruises on his body or why there was a rope burn on his palms… Is he going to go back to his normal life, his kids? Is there any way to go back to normalafter losing the part of yourself that you believed wasn’t capable of hurting another person?
Another question comes to me: if there’s a chance Marcus Walsh could turn violent again,shouldhe be allowed to go free?
I immediately feel awful for even thinking it. He didn’t choose to have a ghost hijack his brain and turn him into a weapon. But what if he does turn violent on his own, just like the book said?
I press my palms against my eyes until spots bloom behind my lids, trying to push the questions away. They don’t budge.
