Page 42 of How I Met Your Murderer

I think he was trying to offer to walk me to my vehicle like the gentleman he was, because of my hurt knee. But I wasn’t about to let him out of my sight in the little time we had left. So I blurted, “Yes. I need you to come sleep out there with me. Just sleep. If you want. Or whatever it is ghosts do—they didn’t cover that in training, either. You can go to the edge of the castle grounds before you’re pulled back here, right?”

“Right.” Eric’s smile grew warmer and lovelier as we left the castle, locked up tight, and climbed into the back of my van. Sure it was strange, inviting a guy I’d just kissed for the first time to come lay down chastely beside me. But then, we’d passed strange altogether a while ago and entered the long shadow of the uncanny.

He didn’t comment on all the ghost-extracting gear shoved into the corner to make room for my sleeping bag and thin mattress. No, he just waited until I was as comfortable as I was going to get in my boxers and a plain black t-shirt, then stretched out beside me and finally began to fade to semi-transparency, the wrinkles in the mattress cover just visible beneath him.

I was too tired to think about a damn thing more tonight, but I reached out a hand and he made himself solid enough to take it. To hold onto me in the wreckage of a night gone sideways until the daylight found me again.

For now, it was just us.

Holding on.

Not afraid. Not apart. Not yet.

The van creaked softly as it rocked in a gust of cold night air, the metal sides sighing. My whole body felt heavy as I drifted toward sleep—not just the ordinary haze of too much whiskey and a near-stabbing by a lunatic, but a bone-deep kind of exhaustion that made my thoughts drift like fog long after Eric’s apparition had faded completely.

I knew I wasn’t alone only by the feeling in the van, a certain lightness in the air that I’d come to associate with his presence. He was near.

My knee throbbed in a dull, familiar way as I tossed and turned, sleep closing in but not drawing the final curtain as fast as I would have liked. I imagined the castle silhouette looming over the little van, casting a shadow over it even in the dead of night. Impossible. But what about Ardruin wasn’t?

Hovering on the edge of sleep, I heard it: a faint scritch-scritch-scritch against the side of the van near my head.

No, that wasn’t right.

It was more of a long, dragging scrape. Like claws or nails digging into the metal siding. More like scritch-scrape-tap.

My eyes almost fluttered open, but sleep had too strong a hold on me. My brain felt as if it moved through treacle, and I couldn’t muster the energy to care about an intruder. Either I was on my way to dream about Eric, or the fox or badger or fecking oversized castle rat sniffing around outside was going to burst in and eat me.

The van rocked a little as something brushed against it again.

Was that a paw? A snout? A hand?

Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch.

“Ah, leave it out, then,” I groaned, slightly hoarse. “I’ve had enough for one night.” The sound didn’t spark real fear. Not tonight. Not after nearly getting stabbed, not after—

That kiss.

The memory washed over me in a warm, dizzying rush: Eric’s hands on my waist. The true, solid weight of him, and how he’d clutched me like he’d been waiting for me since long before I found his old videos, let alone the real him. The way he had looked at me afterward, like he was afraid to let go. Like he wanted to say more. Be more, even.

I pressed my face into my pillow, trying to smother the smile tugging at my mouth in case Eric was watching. I didn’t want him to see how far gone I already was for him.

God, I was in trouble.

Spirits moved on—that was the point of it all. That was the job. And Eric . . . If anyone deserved the peace of whatever came next, it was him.

Scritch-tap-thump.

The sound was right by my head this time. I sighed, keeping my eyes intentionally closed, and called out to the night: “If you’re a spirit, come back during regular business hours. If you’re a fox, piss off altogether. If you’re a banshee, I’m not dealing with it.”

Sweet silence answered.

But then came a single, deliberate tap on the metal siding.

My pulse jumped, but only for a moment, exhaustion already pulling me back under like a tide. I still didn’t open my eyes. I was too tired. Too heartsore. Too full of the warmth of Eric’s mouth on mine and the cold certainty of losing him by the month’s end.

The scratching didn’t come again.

The night settled but for the soft trill of a robin—or the imitation of one. Eric. Lulled by the gentle birdsong, I finally sank into a restless sleep.