𝐟𝙪𝐥𝐥 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚 ┃ 𝐥𝙪𝒌𝙚 𝐩𝙖𝒕𝒕𝙚𝙧𝙨𝞸𝙣

Chapter 4

My heart starts pounding and I try to pull back from Luke again. No can do, he won't let me.

"Anne, you need to trust that I won't let your mom get hurt." He says quietly. I close my eyes tightly, and my hands start balling into fists. Nothing scares me more than my Mom facing that monster alone.

All I can do is sit there and picture my Dad's face.

"Hey, you pull away as many times as you need to. I don't ever want to make you feel trapped." I hear Mac tell my mom. I feel my body tensing at the idea that I can't get to her, and to my left I can tell Kota is kinda feeling the same.

"Relax." Luke whispers.

I can feel my body starting to get drowsy, but my mind is wide awake. Every shift of someone else in the room has me on alert. If he so much as moves around her I notice.

"Anne, relax. He was abused as a kid. He would never touch your mom." He whispers again, and I feel a tear slip out. It doesn't go anywhere, Luke brushes it off my cheek with his thumb.

"I'm scared Luke, he's going to find us." I whisper back. Just then he pulls back.

"Not if I can help it." He has a hard look in his eyes, and I know he knows everything, even things I don't remember.

"This guy is a monster." He grits through his teeth.

"Agreed." Reggie snarls, now holding a sleeping Ben on his shoulder. Oh Ben. That kid can fall asleep anywhere. Ignoring my own exhaustion, I go to get up to take Ben off of Reggie. Luke stops me.

"No, let your mom finish." I notice she's still forehead to forehead with Mac, and she's the calmest I've ever seen her since Dad died.

"Anne." Kota says from the other side of me. I turn and look at him. "I don't think we have to fight alone anymore."

"Dang right you don't." Reggie reiterates.

"Alex told me it was bad. I didn't believe him." Luke confesses to me.

"Most people don't." I shrug.

"Pineapples." Ben mumbles in his sleep. Yes, he sleep talks. Yes, it's 99.99% about food every single time.

Mom giggles at him, and Mac pulls away.

"Thank you." He tells her, and she smiles back.

"Thanks for letting me feel safe enough to share it."

"We're going to compare what we saw, and we'll get back to you ASAP." Alex tells us. I nod and walk over to Reggie and Ben.

"Wait, how are you touching him?" I ask.

"Well, we can touch people for the most part, it just takes effort." Reggie explains. "But little man here passed out on me and I can't let him fall onto the couch."

I pick him up, wincing a little between his weight and the burning in my arms. I rotate him and lay him down so he's on his side, how he normally sleeps.

"Hey, easy there hot shot, you could have asked someone else to move him." Luke says, glancing between my face and arms.

"I'm fine, rocker boy. Go talk to your friends." I shoot back. He grins like a little kid and poofs out.

"Rocker boy?" Kota asks, Mom glancing at me funny as well.

"Well I wasn't going to call him Ballerina Boy." I roll my eyes. Mom laughs.

We start exploring the garage, and I come across a C.D.

"Wait! Kota! Isn't this the band you were playing on the plane?" I ask, holding it up.

"Yeah! Sunset Curve!"

I grin, and toss it to Mom.

"Let's bring it inside and play it!" She nods.

"Benny!" I run over, shaking him awake. His eyes pop open and he starts like I jumper cabled him.

"Dance party in the living room!" He grins and jumps off the couch, as we run after Mom and Kota to get inside.

Mom puts it in the CD player before hitting play, and the first strands of the song from the plane hit our ears. Kota and Ben know every word by heart, and I remember most of the chorus, so we get a solid air band going with Mom as our drummer, and us three as guitar players.

Don't look down
Cause we're still rising up right now
And even if we hit the ground
We'll still fly
Keep dreaming like we'll live forever
But live it like it's now or never

By the second chorus we all have it figure out. I start singing my lungs out, trying to out preform Kota, and Ben is air strumming so hard he accidentally smacks Kota in the stomach. What a goon.

The song finishes and Mom nods towards the kitchen. We all turn to see the three ghosts standing there, along with Mac, looking very very shocked.

"You like our song?" Reggie asks.

"Your song?" Kota asks back.

"Now or Never. I wrote that." Luke informs him.

"No, that's a Sunset Curve song." Ben sasses him.

"Luke Patterson. Lead guitarist and vocalist for Sunset Curve, as well as writer. Look at the booklet." Luke states Ben straight in the eyes. Ben grabs the CD cover and opens it, then pulls out the cover. No frickin way. There's a picture of all three of them on the inside of the CD.

"That's you guys singing?!" Kota asks in shock.

"Dreaming like we'll live forever, live it like it's now or never!" Luke belts and yep, same voice.
If I had a real guitar, it would have been dropped. Instead, I drop my jaw.

"No frickin way."

I called it on the plane.

The lead singer on that track IS hot.