Page 54 of Found Objects

“Merritt, what’s happening?” Justin asked from the doorway as he and both of his parents came into the room, leaving Reggie to run inference with the nurse if she tried to walk back in.

“Shut up,” Cole barked at him. “Everyone be still. He’s trying to save Evan.”

Intuitively, he knew what I was trying to do, which was very helpful, but even more so was his command for silence. Because only then would I be able to lure the spirit to the surface. I would know it was close when I heard the sound.

Hard to do nothing while Evan started choking and whimpering, his eyes widening in fear as his body began to shake. The seizure was violent, and I leaned over him, holding him easily, bending close to him, waiting, waiting, until finally, I heard a low growl.

“No,” I said out loud, my voice edged with warning. It sounded, I knew, more than a bit scary—the same reverberation from something unseen that used to stalk the deepest, darkest part of the forest.

Evan instantly arched up off the bed, his body going rigid, frozen for long moments. He began panting, and blood ran from his eyes like tears.

Moving quickly, I leaned in and whispered in Evan’s ear, “Fear me.”

A wave of power rushed out of me, and everyone in the room dropped to the floor except Cole. He had both hands flat on his brother’s bed, and he was unsteady, but he didn’t go down.

“No wandering spirit, no matter how ancient, how powerful, can stand before me,” I breathed out, seeing the green glow of my eyes illuminating Evan’s face.

“Not…spirit.” The entity inside of the boy barely got the words out. “Ghost.”

But how could that be? Ghosts were tied to the places where their remains were. They didn’t move. They couldn’t.

“Need him to…know.”

“Evan?” I asked.

“Cole,” the ghost replied.

“Need him to know what?”

“Unnatural.”

“Your death?”

“Yes.”

“He will know,” I promised.

“You must…truth.”

“I will find out. Weigh my words, feel my heart.”

Instantly, Evan dropped back onto the bed, his limbs going lax as the tension left him. A black cloud rose out of his body for a second before it turned first to gray smoke, then white, and finally to ash that fell all over the room, dusting all of us and every surface.

“Mere,” Cole murmured, stepping into me, his chest pressed to my back, and wrapping his arms around my waist. He nuzzled my hair, then my cheek, giving me no choice but to tip my head sideways so he could push his nose into the space between my neck and shoulder.

He had to be close to me. It was the animal in him that wanted to protect me, mark me, make me submit, but most importantly, offer me comfort after I’d used my power. It made sense that he would think I would be depleted after a healing, but my energy didn’t work like that. It never waned. It couldn’t. I had been made, specifically, to hold an infinite amount.

Evan sucked in a breath and then turned his head fast, with the preternatural speed that scared those unfamiliar with shifters, and looked up at me with wide eyes. “Merritt?”

I smiled at him, holding his human hand now, no longer a paw. “Hey, buddy.”

“Cole?”

Letting go of me, Cole leaned over and wrapped Evan in his arms, holding tight. I moved out of the way so the others could reach them as well.

There was lots of hugging, and Narah kissed him, and then Evan started shaking, but this time from relief and happiness.

“Merritt?”