Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 17: Trust Me, Baby (Part 2)

I sat with my death notebook in the courtyard with the rising sun, receiving ghosts one at a time.

Jane and Ellie were outside with the dwindling 'ghost party'. Jane said Ellie needed exposure to their society.

I became aware of Michael. He leaned in the entryway to the courtyard, watching me.

His eyes were soft and angry, all at once.

I finished threading a ghost and turned to him. He made no move to come towards me, or smile, or seem like his usual kind self. No, he looked terribly serious.

"Hi,'' I said. I cleared my throat nervously.

He finally stepped into the courtyard. "How do you feel?'' he asked.

"Much better,'' I said.

He watched over me, brought me home safe and washed me as I recovered.

He easily broke the cult.

Bodies lay broken at his feet. His confident hand held a gun I didn't know he had.

There was a side to him I didn't know about. Him and all the Alistairs.

"Rose.'' He crossed his arms. He got right to the point. "Was it not Jackal who attacked you this weekend?''

This weekend? "Today isn't Sunday?'' My voice came out timid under his frustrated gaze.

"It's Monday. You slept a long time,'' he said. His eyes flashed. "I was becoming afraid.''

I swallowed. "It wasn't Jackal who attacked me.'' Which wasn't to say that Jackal hadn't been there. But I'd admit only what I had to.

Uncertainty crossed his face. He wanted to believe that I didn't deceive him intentionally. I could see that.

My heart beat faster. Lies on lies, was that my plan? But I'd do anything to keep him happy with me, I thought, as he finally uncrossed his arms and came to sit across from me. And more than that ... more than that ... I felt a wariness I didn't know how to talk about. I couldn't pinpoint the exact source of it. There was no exact source. Except for that fight in the parking lot, maybe, that had escalated so quickly. Except for what Jane had said, maybe, about how he didn't really care about the ghosts.

But he'd been nothing but kind in the end. It was him and Alexander who'd brought the cult to heel without hesitation.

"No?'' he prompted me. "What happened?''

"So,'' I said through my accelerated heartbeat, unable to look at him; I kept my eyes on my lap, calculating what half-truths I could get away with. "So, as we got closer to that clearing, I sensed a revenant there. But I also sensed the two souls that the speakers were holding hostage.'' My eyes darted to Puck and Robin, still making angels on the grass. It felt tactless to talk about them like this.

Michael looked towards where I did, frowning. "Who?''

"The tortured ones,'' I whispered.

"Ah.'' He leaned back, turning to me, dismissing what he couldn't see. Yes, Jane was right. "How, exactly?''

"I think the speakers were using their threads to elongate their own lives,'' I said. "That's why they died, right? What I saw from far away was that they were kind of doing to them what Jackal had tried to do to me, except they'd completely,'' I choked, "taken them apart.''

"I see.''

"I didn't know what I was seeing from far away. Since I can't see living souls' threads,'' I said. "But it was obviously wrong.''

"And yet you stayed silent, Rose. You told us nothing. You broke your promise.''

I flinched. "I was afraid you would stop me and I had to keep going.''