Let Me Go

Chapter Eleven

Corey's POV

Kota storms out of the room after Raven makes his proclamation.

My attention turns to my boyfriend, someone I thought I knew everything about, but apparently he had been keeping something very important from everyone.

"You can see ghosts?" I ask in disbelief.

Everyone is now facing Raven, at how he has his arms positioned in a weird pose. Like he is holding someone to him. Apparently, whoever this little bird is that we have agreed to watch over. Somehow I think that Raven will be taking the majority of the shifts.

Raven looks to the person in his lap, who we can't see, then goes into his explanation.

"Back in Russia, most of you know things weren't the best for me. Y'all know a lot of what happened, what I had to do. What you might not know because it's not something that I go around advertising is that one of the jobs they sent me on, almost killed me. I'm honestly not sure why I didn't, but I was sitting on death's door. White lights and all."

Something catches his attention for a moment, but whatever the ghost says has him turning back to us and finishing what he was telling us.

"I don't know how long I was out or what happened during that time, but when I woke up, there was something different about me. Not physically. I couldn't even tell you how I knew at first why something felt different, just that it was. It wasn't until a few days later that I realized what it was about me that had changed.

"I was sent on another job to execute someone the mafia wanted gone. Being the professional Russian that I am, I did my job. After I killed the john, things took a turn. His spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it, was released from his physical body. And I could see it, see him. The dude looked right at me. I figured he would be pissed at what I had just done to him, but he was more worried about what was tying him to this world. Wanted my help.

"It was after a few more jobs the Academy found me and brought me to America. I thought I was just stressed and imagined the whole thing. But it happened several more times after that, even here. I wasn't killing targets. My life had been turned around from the hell it had been before. No stress. At least not what I had been feeling there. Yet, I was still seeing things I couldn't explain. Eventually I talked to one of them and figured out what was going on."

"Is that why you don't like coming to the hospital? Because of spirits?" Sean asks.

"Yeah. The Academy hospital isn't as bad because not many patients pass here, but I had my share of spirits bombarding me before making it to this point. Hospitals have a high level of spirits because of the trauma that happens. Especially if I come through the ER. Most people in the ER aren't planning on dying when they do so they have things left unsaid to loved ones. Or just can't accept that they have passed."

"And that's what has happened to Miss Sang here?" I ask in a quiet voice. It's weird because I have a feeling she is watching us and can hear and understand us, but again she is lying unconscious in the bed. She shouldn't be aware of what is happening around her, according to the things Raven has revealed. Yet, here she is. Sitting in Raven's lap and throwing everything I had ever thought I knew out the window.

There are things that can't be explained away by logic and math. I know this. But I deal in facts. I want to know the who, what, when, and why of everything. Knowing and seeing, by proxy, that ghosts are real is not something that I can comprehend at the moment, but I know I need to gather as much information as I can to understand how we will proceed from here.

"I've never actually been around someone who is still alive, in theory at least." Raven starts. "I see the machines showing us her heart is beating. See her chest rising with each breath. Yet, I see a ghost, her spirit, as well. When Kota is in the room, she lights up brighter than without him. Something I've only seen when the person tying the spirit to this world is in the immediate vicinity.

"Sang told me she had been somewhere else. She probably went to Heaven, or Hell though I doubt that by looking at her, or wherever spirits go but was brought back here when she heard Kota pleading with her unconscious body not to leave him. Wherever she was, she heard him and wanted to come back. This is uncharted water for me as well. I've never been in this situation.

"Do I hope for the best? Of course. Just meeting this little ghost for the short amount of time that I have, I know that she deserves to still grace this planet with her beautiful aura. But could I also lie to the little bossman and not tell him what I've experienced in the past? How would that have been any better? I want to give him hope. Hell, I want hope, but it isn't fair to do so. Not in a situation like this."

Raven looks at the girl, the spirit, and murmurs something too low for us to hear, but she must be giving him some sort of comfort because I watch as his eyes close slowly in defeat, hopefulness, or some emotion that I can't explain. I can't explain it because I've never seen him look like this before. Not at me, our brothers, or anyone he has come across before. Somehow this ghost has gotten under his skin in a short amount of time. I thought I was the one he could confide in, the one he came to when things were tough, but here is a side of him I never knew existed.

If this girl does survive, what does this mean for our relationship?