Ghosted (Absent Fate Book 1)

by Jenica Saren

  Quickly, I scrambled to my feet. "Nope. Not another word. Never happened."

  "I was just going to ask if I could have a sandwich, too," he said with a low laugh. When I thought about it, it was the first time I'd really heard just him laugh. It was a beautiful, hypnotic sound that I decided he should do more often.

  "Oh." That was the only thing I could think to say. "Sure."

  With that whole embarrassing debacle behind us, I scouted the distance from the living room to the kitchen. My kitchen wasn't extraordinarily large and didn't look like it was any more than six yards away. Still, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to risk it. In fact, I would rather have stood there all day debating whether I should or should not than risk that pain again. The downside to being pseudo-whole again was that I felt pain differently.

  "Want me to go with you?" Hansen asked lazily.

  When I considered the logistics of it, namely how far the fridge was from the breakfast bar, it seemed like the reasonable choice. "Okay, yeah," I agreed with a short nod. "That would probably be best."

  He snorted and got up from the couch he had been sleeping on, yawning as he followed me to the kitchen.

  "You know," I whispered as we stepped around where the others were sleeping. "If anyone was going to be making food with me in the middle of the night, I would have thought it would be Zeph." As I passed the witch hunter in question, I stared down at him, a smile on my face.

  "Did you know that Zeph isn't his full name?" he hinted with a wicked grin in his voice.

  "Oh?"

  "Yep. Do you want to know what it is?" he asked mischievously.

  Just then, Zeph stuck his middle finger straight up in the air. "Don't you dare, dickhead," he warned. He never even blinked an eye open, just lowered his hand back to his chest and snuggled into his pillow.

  Hansen choked out a laugh and I followed suit. "Zeph, want a sandwich?" I coaxed in a sing-song tone of voice. "We have lots of stuff."

  Zeph's eyes did open then. Wide. "Hell yes, I want a sandwich. I can't stand pretending to sleep for another second," he complained as he sat up and stretched out his arms.

  "You were pretending to sleep?" I asked, a little surprised.

  "Yep. Being stuck in one room means I can't pace or anything," he explained as we practically tiptoed to the kitchen.

  Once I flipped on the low overhead lights, I directed Hansen to the fridge and Zeph to the pantry. "Huh. I guess I never thought of it like that," I replied. "I'm sorry about that, really." Zeph returned with two loaves of french bread and sat them in front of me before returning to the pantry for whatever else he'd seen in there.

  "Don't blame yourself, Ghost Girl, you didn't know that saving our souls would get you stuck to them," he said nonchalantly. "By the way, congrats on being physical again. Do I want to know how?"

  "Hansen's penis," I answered flatly.

  A loud THUMP sounded behind me and I turned to see Hansen retreating from the fridge, rubbing his head. "That's not exactly what happened," he corrected, pinning me with a glare that may have scared me off if I wasn't attached to him.

  "You're right," I amended, hanging my head in faux shame. "I broke his penis."

  Zeph let out a clear, beautiful laugh and Hansen groaned. "Well, that didn't go where I was expecting it," Zeph joked.

  "She fell out of the air and landed on it," Hansen defended, hands in the air. "And she didn't break it."

  "He wanted me to," I teased.

  A gleam of mischief shone in Hansen's eyes and I backpedalled immediately. He was going to bring up the kissing thing. "No, I just sort of didn't think my landing through very well."

  I glanced at him to make sure we were good and he nodded once, subtly. Phew. With Zeph still chuckling, I got to work on the sandwiches, ordering the guys to grab various items from the fridge and pantry in case I couldn't go much farther than where I was already standing.

  The dynamic of whatever my magick had done was starting to make sense, little by little. Essentially, it was like I was the anchor point of a square and while the four corners could move about, they couldn't go too far from the centre. Unfortunately, that made a witch the centre of a witch hunter square, which I was sure no one would enjoy. It complicated things too much and was truthfully stressful as hell. I wanted to figure out a way to sever what I had done, but I needed to know exactly what I had done in the first place.

  Suddenly, I wished I were back to being dead-not-dead. It was at least simpler then. I didn't have to worry about pissing off guys or whether a witch hunter was going to get me. I just had to worry about getting through each day without rotting away. Then again, another witch hunter may have found the banshee that was my body, and they wouldn't have hesitated. At least this bunch, in particular, seemed to care a bit about me not going away forever.

  I wondered why that was, not for the first time. I'd only known them for less than a handful of days, but it still felt as though we had some friendship vibes going. I knew, rationally, that we were enemies first and friends second. It was in their very nature to want me dead, but these guys were somehow avoiding it.

  Well, one of them probably didn't have that natural instinct to want me dead. Jadwin. I'd heard him when I was struggling to protect the others, I'd heard his words and everything they entailed. Jadwin was a Syntyche witch and there was no way around that. But how? First of all, he was male, and that was unheard of in the coven. Ever. All witches born were women, that was part of our way of life. And, also, if he was a witch, why was he posing as a witch hunter? It didn't make any amount of sense or add up, and all I was doing was giving myself a headache trying to figure it out.

  As I finished up the sub sandwiches, I set them out on plates and passed them to the two guys who were quietly watching me work. "Soup's on," I said cheerily.

  "Watching you make a sandwich was some kind of art, I fucking swear," Zeph said as he whistled through his teeth.

  I glanced warily at Hansen who nodded his agreement. "You just kind of zoned out and did everything automatically," he added. He took a bite out of his sandwich and I swear his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. "That's it. We're having sandwiches every day from here on out."4

  "It's my new favourite food and I want it every day," Zeph announced around a mouthful of sandwich.

  Snickering, I started on my own sandwich. Despite my slim figure that I got teased about a lot, I could actually pack quite a bit of food. My body just didn't feel like showing it. My mom liked to joke and say that it was because of all the caffeine I drank when I was in high school, which I was starting to think was true.

  When everyone had finished their food, I put the dishes in the sink and shut off the lights, leading our little trio back into the dark living room. Before laying down, Zeph and Hansen put more wood on the fire and stoked it to perfection. The natural warmth in the room made me sleepy enough all on its own, but snuggled underneath my grandmother's favourite blanket and in her favourite reading chair was what did me in.

  For a while, we all lay in silence, listening to each other breath or, in Gavyn's case, snore. For such a nice guy, he sure made some mean sounds. Other than that, the house was quiet. No wind blew outside, no air conditioning or furnace blowing, just the crackling of the fire, our breathing, and the shuffling of quiet footsteps.

  The what?

  Careful to not draw any attention, I remained still, not daring to move an inch. I tried to keep my breathing at an even, shallow pace and made sure that only the eye on the side of the pillow was cracked open. One of my grandmother's favourite things about her chair was the position it was in, so she could see everything without being backed into a corner. At the moment, I was grateful for that.

  The shuffling of feet got closer and I could feel the panic building. I prayed with all my might that the guys had heard it too and were feigning sleep, just as I was. The sound was coming closer, but moving extremely slowly. When it was almost to the corner where the hallway met the living room, I was sur
e that my heart was going to beat right out of my temporary chest.

  Something came around the corner, and, as though they had been poised and ready from the beginning, all four guys leapt up from their positions and pounced. The thing screeched and I knew all too well what it was, but I wasn't sure how it got around the warding that the guys had put up. They had assured me that it worked against banshees.

  It kept screeching and screeching, but it was nowhere near as powerful as my banshee had been. Before it got too far, I did what Jadwin had tried to do before and drew some quick runes in the air, binding the banshee with a simple silencing spell.

  With that done, I rose from the chair and moved closer to where the guys had the banshee pinned against the wall. However, I wasn't ready for what sight awaited me.

  Before I could scream or tell them to stop, someone had lit a match and my best friend's mother went up in flames.

  Right Before the Plan That Would Definitely Kill Me

  I watched in painful silence as the guys salted Mrs Laveau's ashes and then moved them to the backyard, where they poured them in the flowerbed.

  "You didn't know and there's nothing you could have done," Zeph reassured me, giving my shoulders a quick squeeze.

  Gavyn moved to my other side. "He's right. You were the exception to the rule," he explained softly. "Most souls move through the veil when they are removed from their bodies."

  Their words were coming through, loud and clear, but I still couldn't bring myself to accept what they were saying as truth. To me, there was something more I could have done. I could have tried to save her, maybe tied her up and held her until Whitney could have said her goodbyes, at the very least. Now, all I was left with was the grave burden of telling my best friend that I had killed her mother.

  "You didn't kill her," Jadwin said from the entryway. I fell back into my grandmother's chair with my head in my hands.

  "Are you a mind reader now?" I asked sarcastically. Of all the people to be in charge of cheering someone up, the brooding one wouldn't have been my first choice.

  He sighed and started closer. He must have given some sort of signal to the others, because they each gave my shoulders a quick squeeze before leaving the room. "No, but I know what guilt feels like," he confessed. "Even misplaced guilt can be something difficult to overcome."

  I almost snorted a laugh. "And you feel guilty?"

  "Of course I do," he answered immediately. He grasped my hands and pulled them away from my face, revealing his own to be mere inches away. "You already know, so I may as well say it: I'm a witch. I murder my own people on a regular basis and call them the scourge of the earth. But that's my blood that's shed, too, you understand?"

  My eyes were wide as I stared back at him and his blue eyes that danced in the firelight. "Why do you do it?" I asked him, my voice low.

  "The simple answer would be that I hate witches, wouldn't it?" he countered effortlessly. He didn't seem to be too bothered by recounting the issue with me.

  I nodded.

  "But no, that's not quite it. My mother was a witch, right here in this very coven," he told me quietly. "But, being born a boy when I shouldn't have been, she threw me away. I was nothing more than disposable. And, for some reason, there were apparently no other covens that wanted to take me in."

  That was nothing short of awful. Especially hearing that other covens had refused to care for an orphaned infant of their own kind... I couldn't even imagine.

  "My mother apparently tracked down the man who was my biological father, then spelled him into believing that I came from a previous fling of theirs and she was just an average woman," he continued. His eyes had turned hard, but he sounded sad. "She left and I was raised by him. What she didn't know was that he was a witch hunter like myself. He kept that fact hidden even from me until I was old enough to join and train with the clan."

  In all honesty, I was expecting a bit more to the story, but maybe he'd made it so clean cut so that it didn't hurt to think about? Who knew. "So, witches didn't want you and the witch hunters did. That's why you do it?" I asked, a little stunned.

  He sighed and rocked back on his heels. "Let's just say I've seen the evil that witches can and constantly do to the world. I'm glad to be ridding the world of them," he answered firmly.

  "Why not kill me, then?"

  "I don't know."

  "Do the others know?"

  "Yes and no."

  Frustrated, I leaned back in my grandmother's chair. "It's a yes or no question, not both," I chided.

  "They know my mother was a witch, but they think I'm a dud, just as everyone else does."

  A... Dud? With as rich as the Syntyche bloodline was, it was no surprise that I'd never encountered that term before, but I was still a bit taken aback at the idea of a witch's child being born with no magick. It was a terrible thought in every respect.

  After that, neither of us quite seemed to know what to say, so we drifted into an awkward silence. He hadn't told me not to tell the others, but maybe that went without saying. Maybe he'd just assumed that I was too invested in the witch's creed that I wouldn't do anything about it. On that point, he would be right. It wasn't my place to tell, and it would come out sooner or later, whether he wanted it to or not.

  The moon was already high in the sky by the time everyone settled back into the living room, but none of us were going to really be able to sleep. A banshee had somehow gotten into the house that was supposed to be warded against them, which set everyone on edge.

  "So, uh," Gavyn said, clearing his throat. He was trying to ease the silence. "You're physical again, huh?"

  I only nodded, not sure what there was to really say.

  "There was a dick involved," Zeph said loudly, drawing everyone's attention. "What? It's true." He shrugged.

  Jadwin stood up and began pacing in front of the fireplace. "We don't have time for idle chit-chat," he snapped. "We need to plan our next move and figure out what to do about this whole shitstorm of a situation."

  "I couldn't agree more," Hansen said with a nod. "Obviously, the house isn't safe, but we can't risk leading them back to the apartment."

  "We could bunk with Juniper in her shop," Gavyn suggested.

  Zeph laughed. "No thanks, man. That relationship you two have is weird, no offence."

  "Then, we could go to the clan?" Hansen offered.

  "No!" Jadwin and I objected loudly. Hansen looked between the two of us suspiciously.

  "Well, I don't really see what other options we have, then," he huffed, falling back against the sofa he was seated on. "Do we just shack up here and hope for the best?"

  The guys tossed ideas around, one of them suggesting something and another shutting it down. It went back and forth for goddess knows how long and I was just sinking in my own thoughts.

  A lot had happened for just a few days, not to mention how much had happened just for one of those days. It was surreal. My mother and grandmother were still missing in action, my best friend was holed away in a sanctuary while her mother lay in a pile of ash, the coven's High Priestess was a traitor, I still hadn't gotten my body back, my body was a raging bitch of a banshee, we had no idea what to do, and my very essence was literally tied to the four witch hunters who couldn't decide on a game plan.

  That was when it hit me. We needed a game plan. Not a place to go and hunker down, but a few minutes to scribble out a few ideas and figure out what we could do to stop the mess in the first place.

  "Hey, guys?" I said quietly.

  I'd expected them all to continue with their discussion and not hear me, but they all paused mid-sentence and turned to me. I was entirely unprepared for that. "What if we really do just stay here?" I suggested.

  "But the banshees can obviously still get in-" Zeph started. I cut him off.

  "Exactly. Let them in. Pick them off as they come," I said, trying to appear determined and sure of myself, despite the way my stomach turned in the most painful way.

  Hansen a
nd Jadwin glanced at each other before looking back to me. "You know that would mean harming some, not harming none, right?" Hansen asked, brows furrowed in concern.

  Nodding sagely, I sat forward and propped my elbows on my knees. "And then, when we see my body again, just burn it."

  Four sets of eyebrows shot up into hairlines as they took in what I'd just suggested. They knew how much I wanted to be whole again, but, well, I was doing okay with this temporary form I was rocking. There wasn't much different about it, except for the fact it was temporary. And since it was a limited time sort of deal anyway, it seemed like the smart thing to do would be to, you know, get it over with.

  "Ghost Girl, there's an extremely high chance that you'll die for good if we do that. You understand?" Zeph asked scooting onto the edge of his seat.

  I nodded. "I know. But hey, it's been a good run so far, right?" I joked. "And it will get me out of telling Whit that I watched her mom get killed by witch hunters because she was a raging banshee." I chuckled, but it lacked the enthusiasm it should have had.

  All four of the guys seemed to be having a silent conversation with each other, weighing the pros and cons of the option I'd presented them with. All I needed was to give them a teeny, tiny nudge in the right direction.

  "If one person has to get hurt to keep the rest of the world whole, then what is that worth to you?" I asked the room, echoing Gavyn's words from earlier in the day. The four of them turned their gazes on me. Their eyes were conflicted, Gavyn's even looked pained - probably because I'd used his sentiment against him. But, if that's what it took to keep any more people from getting hurt, to keep my people safe, then I didn't care.

  "She's right," Jadwin admitted, sounding defeated. He dropped down in front of the fireplaces, leaning back on his hands. "Her banshee self is fucking powerful and probably part of the driving force for the others."

  "Not to mention, she's essentially the High Priestess's bodyguard," Hansen supplied.