Page 10 of Phantom’s Mate

It seemed that anything she’d seen that she could imagine clearly enough, she could create.

A little voice in her head said, Including a guy?

No. She hadn’t imagined Nick. If she’d made him, he wouldn’t have left. Although, most of the guys she’d been in love with had left, so… maybe that’s all she could subconsciously imagine.

That would suck.

Oh, hell, she thought. What if she just kept imagining an entire stream of hot guys, who left and never came back?

Although, if that was how it was going to be, she was sure as shit giving the next one a better look at her sexy underwear, and/or jumping his bones. Because if she only got one shot, she might as well take advantage.

Don’t be crazy, she told herself. Nick was real. She just had to hope that he wasn’t a torture of purgatory, giving her hope and then letting her wait for a visitor who would never return.

Was it really unfinished business that was keeping her here? If so, why the hell didn’t she know what it was? Nick knew what his was.

Every time she ended up at that spot by the road, she had the nagging feeling there was something there, something she needed to find or do.

But there was nothing there to find. At least, she realized, not in this version of the spot. Even with the never-changing weather, she hadn’t ever really quite grasped that she wasn’t there anymore, in the living world. She was… there-adjacent.

So maybe whatever there was to be found, could only be found in the real world. Something misty and insubstantial to her, like the things at her memorial site.

The problem was, there were huge gaps in her memory of her life, especially right before the accident. She remembered the Halloween party—and she remembered storming out of there after finding Chaz with his tongue down some bimbo’s throat and his hand up her skirt.

She remembered driving away down this stupid winding road, tears pouring down her face. Remembered taking the curve too fast, the feel of the car hydroplaning…

So was it something about Chaz that was keeping her here? Something she needed to say or do to him? Like, for instance, cut off his balls, stuff and mount them, and send them to him as a Christmas present?

But that didn’t feel right. Chaz wasn’t worth it, and it had taken a lot less than two years of Halloween purgatory to figure that out. If she hadn’t died, she’d have gone home, packed her stuff, set his favorite outfit on fire by pouring his hipster cologne all over it and lighting it up, and walked away.

Pissed at herself for believing in him.

This felt like something more important. But every time she tried to remember, there was just that same flash of light behind her eyes, and then she was back where she started, on a windy, rainy night, in a stupid costume, by the side of the road.

Seeing her body being loaded in an ambulance. Seeing it drive away without lights and sirens, because she was already dead.

Being left alone.

Was it possible Nick or his friend could help her break the cycle? Help her remember, and finish her unfinished business?

She hoped so. But even if Nick was part of purgatory—or even part of her imagination—she wanted to see him again. Because for the first time since before she’d been dead, she felt alive.

Chapter 6

When Nick got back to Wild Blood territory—a mostly-renovated mansion with a few outbuildings outside of Farville, Kentucky, at the base of a small, thickly-wooded mountain—he found his crew mates in the middle of a Sunday afternoon game of ‘Capture the Flag.’

Or rather, because they were the Wild Bloods, it was a game of ‘Capture the Giant Glitter Dick Only Also With Laser Tag’, but the rules were mostly the same. Except that if you got ‘fatally’ shot by a laser gun you were out of commission.

So you could win by either capturing the flag, or killing the entire opposing team and claiming the flag over their ‘dead’ bodies.

Option 2 usually ended in a nice, refreshing brawl, followed by drinks and a barbecue.

Option 1 ended the same, except without the brawl. Most of the time.

The Glitter Dick was a three-foot inflatable neon-pink monstrosity that Brandon’s dad, Xander, had provided out of the samples from his online glitter condom, sex-toy and novelty shop. It was tied to a stick and stuck in a pile of rocks on the edge of the gravel parking area.

Brandon’s childhood best friends, identical twins Colt and Remington McCall, were guarding the Glitter Dick, weapons at the ready. Nick caught a glimpse of a laser gun battle going on in the woods up the hill, people dodging in and out of the trees.

He also saw Remy’s mate, Jaeda, climbing across the roof of the house, keeping low behind the plastic Santa sleigh perched up there. For some reason she was wearing a bikini. So far, Nick seemed to be the only one who’d noticed her.