Page 107 of Haunt Me, Maybe

My hands hovered over him, terrified to touch. Terrified that he’d dissolve. His chest rose. Slow. Again, in steady breaths. He was breathing. I pressed shaking fingers to his neck. A pulse beat beneath his skin. His warm skin. This was impossible.

His lashes fluttered. Confusion clouded eyes the color of amber and honey, and he inhaled sharply, like a man breaking the surface after too long underwater.

“What…happened?” he rasped.

A laugh tore out of me, hysterical and broken and so full of relief it hurt more than the grief ever had.

“You idiot,” I sobbed, grabbing his face between my hands. My thumbs brushed soot from his cheekbones like they could wipe away every second he’d been gone. “You fucking reckless idiot.”

He blinked up at me, slow and dazed, and then his mouth curved in that crooked smile I’d fallen in love with. I choked on another laugh and pressed my forehead to his.

“How is this possible?” I whispered, voice splintering.

Wes coughed, winced, and then managed a weak chuckle that rattled in his chest as if it was still learning how to work. “Do we…need to question it?”

There was a soft glow in the settling dust. Wes lifted his wrist slowly, and there, tied around it was the silk ribbon, the one that anchored him to me when he was nothing but frozen shadows and a curse. It flashed once and dimmed to ordinary satin.

Fenn hopped forward, eyes bright despite the exhaustion dragging at him.

He was tethered to you, he said, voice timeworn. A true witch’s anchor. When the vortex destabilized, all that raw energy had nowhere else to go. It seems to have filled him. Reconstituted him.

I stared at Fenn and then back at Wes.

“That still doesn’t explain how he’s alive now. Like—actually alive. Flesh. Blood. Breathing.”

Wes’s mouth quirked. “Again…must we question it?” He coughed and then added, “I didn’t exactly ask how I became a ghost, and this is way better. So….”

Fenn tilted his head, eyeing Wes with faint suspicion.

Without the ribbon, he probably would have been erased completely. I felt myself growing sick at the idea. The energy in that vortex had to go somewhere. How exactly it rebuilt him…I don’t have the answer for that. He paused. I doubt he is truly human anymore. But he is definitely alive.

Wes winced as he tried to sit up, one hand pressing to his side. “Being alive feels a lot like being hit by a bus.”

I helped him sit, careful of the bruises and cuts and the impossible new heartbeat thudding against his chest. He rested his forehead against my shoulder, eyes closing for a moment like he was memorizing the feel of skin on skin.

“I thought I lost you,” I whispered.

“Never,” he answered, voice thick with everything he carried through death and back. He met my eyes, that crooked smile growing steadier and more certain than I’d ever seen it. “I’m never leaving you again, Aven. You’re going to be sick of me—every morning, every night, every time you turn around, I’ll be right there. Breathing the same air as you. Annoying the hell out of you. Leaving my socks everywhere. Loving you so hard it hurts.”

I pressed my mouth to his in answer, tasting ash and salt and him.

“If you ever pull that heroic bullshit again, I’ll haunt you myself.”

He laughed, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. “Deal,” he murmured, kissing me again.

It was slower this time, his tongue tracing the seam of my mouth like he had forever to prove it. Outside, the first gray of dawn slipped through the broken roof, painting the smoke in a soft silver. I looked at Wes and felt something loosen in my chest, something that had been knotted tight for years.

We were scarred. We were tired. We were changed in ways we might never fully understand. But we were here. Together. Finally, the future didn’t feel like something to run from. It felt like something we could walk toward, hand in hand, step by careful step, through whatever came next.

EPILOGUE

Aven

The river ran dark and deep beside the old mill, its current unbothered by the chill that crept into the air. Late autumn was fading fast, and the whole town seemed determined to finish the renovations before winter could sink its teeth in.

Lanterns hung from temporary beams, casting golden pools across the scaffolding. Laughter carried over the rhythmic thud of hammers and the whine of saws. Someone had strung fairy lights along the half-repaired balcony, and they blinked softly against the coming dusk.

Hot cider was passed around in mismatched mugs. A long folding table sagged under casseroles, pies, and Mrs. Haverly’s aggressively competitive apple crumble. The smell of cinnamon and woodsmoke wrapped around everything like a blanket.