Haunt Me (Mary Hades Book 4) Read online

  There’s a ripple of tension across his jaw, and then his eyes grow cold. He blinks, and the expression fades. He smiles, and my heart skips a beat.

  “Mary,” he says. “You’re wrong. It’s just you and me.” His voice is a mellifluous breath.

  There’s a sweet scent on the air, like honeysuckle. It wraps around me, enveloping me. The warmth spreads over my skin as the vapour encases me in what I can only describe as love. I fight it at first, but then I breath in that sweet scent and become light-headed with its intoxicating scent.

  “It’s just you and me.” He walks around me, whispering, caressing me with his words. “This is where you belong. It’s your paradise. It’s everything you’ve ever desired and I’m giving it to you. No more stress, no more death, no more ghosts. This is where you belong. With me. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll love you. It’s everything you could ever want. All you have to do is take my hand.”

  He reaches out. My body reacts before I can think, stretching my fingers towards his. This is it. This is the moment where all my troubles will fade away. All I need to do is take his hand. But at the back of my mind, beyond the honeysuckle fog, and the sweetness of his words, there’s something lurking that I can’t release.

  “What about the woods?” I ask.

  He frowns. “What about them? You know not to go in there, Mary. Come on, take my hand, walk with me.”

  I slip my hand into his and a sense of calm spreads over my skin. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is where I should be going. I’m safe here, in this world, with him. I’m doing the right thing. But as he leads me through the garden, the world seems so bright I have to squint. When my eyes narrow, all I can see are the woods in the distance. They’re so dark and cold, and my mind keeps telling me I should be concerned. I shake my head and force my feet forwards. The sun is so bright. I can barely see. Everything is a blur of gold.

  Too bright.

  My chest is tight and I can hardly breathe. I pull slightly away from his hand, my fingers slipping away. He turns back so that he meets me with his cold, dark eyes. A shudder ripples through me. Why didn’t I see how evil his eyes are? Why didn’t I see the expression of rage on his pinched face? There’s a noise in the distance, like a high-pitched horn. There it is again, blaring out.

  “Take my hand,” he demands.

  But I pull away. I’m shaking my head and stepping back. My feet are on the cold ground, barefoot and scraping against a hard surface. The golden blur fades into darkness and his face disappears along with it. I wrap my arms around my body as the wind hits my shoulders.

  There’s a screech. A door slams.

  “Mary!” A panicked voice. Male, but not him. “What are you doing?”

  I blink, once, twice. The garden is gone. I’m not where I think I am. I’m somewhere else. I turn slowly and everything comes into focus. There’s a car parked in front of me, which I find odd. There’s someone running towards me. He pulls off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” Jack says. He pushes me towards the car. I stumble and he keeps me upright. “You’re in the middle of the street.”

  “I… I don’t remember,” is all I can say.

  Chapter Seventeen

  LACEY

  All right, I’ll admit it. I was pissed off when Mary left like that. I shouldn’t have been so mad, not after everything she’s done for me. I should’ve realised that leaving her alone was a really bad idea. But when I saw her storm off, I was too pissed off to follow her. I didn’t go back into the school though, not for a while. I wandered through Ashforth trying not to let the nothingness creep up on me. Then, after the sky began to darken, I found my way to the Maynards.

  Willa is in her room leaning against the headrest of her bed with her headphones on and her textbooks on her knee. If she’s surprised to see me walking through the wall, she doesn’t show it. I guess that’s normality in our lives. She removes her headphones and nods to me.

  “Hey, Lace.” Willa’s bright smile makes me feel nice things in nice places. Well, until I realise I’ll never truly be with her, then it all comes crashing down. “How’s Mary? She seemed really upset. When are we going to go talk to her mum?”

  “You’ll have to do that with Jack not me,” I remind her. “I’m dead, remember? Anyway, I don’t know, I didn’t follow her home. I’ve sort of been around and nowhere.” I grimace, trying not to think of the nothingness.

  Willa nods, reading between my words. I’ve told her about the nothingness so she knows the score. “I thought you were with her. Shit. I should have called her. Jack’s in an awful mood. He went to Ravenswood but her mum said she was taking a nap.”

  “Where is he now? Did he say anything to her?” I ask.

  “What? Mary’s mum? No. I think he was going to but chickened out.”

  “Good,” I reply. “It’s probably best we work it out first. I think there’s something she’s not telling us about the suicide girls. She said she went to see Terri, the girl who survived the fall. She said that she didn’t learn anything but I swear she’s lying. There’s more to all this than she’s letting on.”

  “I don’t know if she’s lying,” Willa says. “I just think she’s really stressed out and struggling to process this new ghost problem. She’s still not over the other ghost problems.”

  Maybe Willa’s right. Maybe I need to cut her some slack. I let out a long sigh and Willa puts on some music, something 80s and indie. She works on her homework for a while as I hang out, trying not to think about things too much. It’s only when Jack bursts in with the telephone that I realise hours have gone by.

  “It’s Mary’s mum,” he says. “She’s gone missing.”

  Willa, who had drifted off, sits bolt upright. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s on the phone. She says Mary snuck out and now they can’t find her. She says she’s going to phone the police.”

  “Shit,” Willa says. “We should go and look for her.”

  Jack walks back out of the room still talking on the phone. I’m up and alert, my nerves a crackling bundle of electricity.

  “What about Emmaline?” I say.

  “Mrs. Hades would have checked there wouldn’t she? Jesus, it’s midnight. Where would she have gone on her own at midnight?” Willa says.

  I don’t know but I don’t like the sound of it.

  Jack strides back into the room. “I’m taking Kath’s car. I’m going to drive around and see if I can find her. Will you stay here in case she comes here? Call her mum and me if she turns up.”

  He strides back out of the room and down the stairs. But something feels wrong. Mary doesn’t go wandering in the middle of the night unless there’s a ghost problem, and she’s usually with someone else, like me. I feel a punch in my gut. Maybe she wouldn’t be alone if I was there. I close my eyes and concentrate on her. Sometimes when she’s in distress I can sense where she is. But there’s nothing.

  “I don’t think she’s coming here,” I say. “This isn’t good.”

  “What is it?” Willa asks.

  “I don’t know. I just have this hunch that something is really wrong.” My body is cold all over and all I can think about is Mary walking away from me at the school. If I hadn’t let her go… “Will Jack be mad if we go looking for her?”

  “Yes, but he’s not here.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to leave you here and I don’t want you out there. Not with those ghosts around.”

  “They’ve attacked me in my own home before,” she says. “Come on. We’re going to find her.” She swings her body over the side of the bed and is on her feet in an instant. “We can’t just stay here and we need to stick together. I wish Jack wasn’t such a hot head sometimes. If he’d given us a second, we could have gone with him.”

  “No, it’s better to split up. We can cover more ground. Besides, I have an idea of where to go,” I say.

  “Where?”

  “The quarry.”
/>
  *

  If I still had a beating heart, it would be pounding against my ribs right now. What I have instead is a fluttering in my chest, and an abundance of electrical energy. Willa’s hair is blown back by the wind and she rubs her arms, so I know it’s cold. It’s another clear night, with only a few black clouds in the dark sky.

  Willa shouts Mary’s name. The wind blows it back into her face. My skin prickles with anticipation. The air is full of spark tonight. I expect ghosts to jump out from behind every shadow. I whip around, sensing the slightest presence.

  “What’s wrong?” Willa asks.

  When I look at her I know I shouldn’t have brought her here. It’s not safe, but then, it’s not safe for her anywhere. Curse Jack for rushing out like that, leaving Willa alone with me. Why is everyone I love in danger right now?

  “This is where the girls killed themselves. They jumped over the edge,” I say.

  “You mean, the girls who attacked me?” Willa asks. She folds her arms across her body and stares out towards the gaping hole of the quarry. “Huh. So this is where it happened. Four girls jumped to their deaths.”

  “Creepy, isn’t it?” I reply. I take a step forward and try to sense Mary. I get nothing. “She’s not here, we should go.”

  “Wait,” Willa says. “I want to look over the edge.” She’s not looking at me when she speaks, and that makes me more nervous than the idea of her walking to the edge of the steep drop. But Willa walks towards the quarry and it seems there’s little I can do about it. I snatch at the sleeve of her jumper but she moves her hand away from me.

  “I think that’s a really bad idea,” I say. “It’s not safe. It’s the opposite of safe.” I hurry after her.

  Already I know I can’t stop her. She’s completely focussed on the quarry ahead. Her feet move with purpose towards the drop that makes me jumpy and nervous. I use my fast ghost speed to move ahead of her and stand between her and the edge. Finally her eyes meet mine and she blinks away the glaze over them.

  “I thought I—”

  And then I go cold all over, because there’s the sound of a faraway voice, and I don’t like the slick, hypnotic edge, or the way that Willa goes rigid at the sound.

  It says, “Enjoying the view?”

  Willa whispers one word, “No,” as the voice begins to laugh.

  My breath comes rasping out of my chest like a smoker. I fill myself with strength so that I can push Willa back. But first I’m stopped by the sight over Willa’s shoulder. The ground is opening, letting out four black shapes.

  The suicide girls.

  “Come on.” I clutch Willa’s arm, this time ensuring that I have enough strength to gain purchase. At first she’s immobile, but after I yank her towards me, her feet finally start to move. We have to get out of here before those ghosts attack us for a second time.

  “It was him,” Willa mutters.

  But I can’t worry about that right now. I have to get Willa away from the suicide girls. I need to get me away from them. I may be a strong ghost, but there are four of them.

  Like twisted vines, they rise from the ground with their fingers grasping towards us. They slither along like broken snakes, with their beaten and bruised bodies bending at angles that are unnatural. I lean down and hiss at one girl who almost manages to pull me down. Willa gets her ankle snared by another, but I stamp on their fingers until they whimper and scuttle away.

  Together we run away from the quarry, hurtling past the slithering figures. I finally start to relax after we’ve put some distance between us and them. I turn back to make sure they aren’t following us. But that’s when something hits me squarely in the chest. I’m on the ground feeling as though the wind has been knocked out of me when Willa screams.

  On top of me is the girl who killed herself in the bath. Katie Hodge. Her hands are slippery with blood, but the worst things about her are her black eyes, devoid of all human warmth. I push her away as she tries to strangle me with her bloodied hands. I kick up, hitting her between the legs and forcing her to loosen her grip. To my right, I’m vaguely aware of Willa and yet another ghost. This one is dragging her away from us, trying to force her away into the night. I punch the Katie in the nose and she cries out, falling back.

  I push her onto her back and kick her in the side. “Don’t you know proper spirit etiquette? It’s not nice to hurt other ghosts. Now, kindly fuck off and leave me alone.”

  Katie looks at me like I’m speaking another language, but I haven’t got time to worry about any of that. I need to get to Willa. I can feel my energy wasting away, and the nothingness is just a fraction away, threatening to consume me whole and suck me into its vortex. I can’t let that happen. I have to get to Willa. I use my fast ghost speed and hurry towards them, stopping in front of them and blocking their path. The ghost bares her teeth. Her jaw hangs loose and her skin is mottled with bruises, but I ignore all of that. I throw myself at her, knocking the ghost to the ground.

  The girl is surprised and unprepared for my attack. She tries to squirm out of my grip, but I have her pinned down, and manage to land a few punches before she disappears into the ethos. When I get to my feet and dust myself down, Willa is standing very still with her arms clamped to her sides.

  “Did they hurt you?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. There are tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” I reach forward to brush some of the tears away, but my fingers disappear into her skin.

  “I know who’s behind all of this,” she says.

  “Who?”

  Willa’s phone begins to ring.

  Chapter Eighteen

  MARY

  I’m guided to the car where everything smells like leather and Jack. He has to help me in, even moving my legs across for me. He pulls the jacket closer to my neck and rubs my shoulders, before closing the door and going round to the driver’s seat.

  “I’m going to take you home,” he says. “We’ll get you a cup of tea to warm you up and you’ll be okay.”

  It’s only when he brushes a tear from my cheek that I realise I’m crying. I’m snivelling, in fact. And then I get worse. The ugly crying starts. Snot runs out of my nose, my face gets all scrunched up and probably bright red, and there’s a wail coming from my body that I didn’t know I could make. But Jack doesn’t turn around and run screaming from this monster, he pulls me into his arms and lets me snot all over his shirt.

  His voice is soft when he next speaks, it’s nothing like the gruff Jack-tones I’m used to. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m going to help you.”

  “You don’t understand.” In contrast, my voice is high-pitched, barely even making words. “I’ve been so weak. I let him manipulate me. I couldn’t stop. I chose to go with him.”

  “Go with who? Mary, what are you talking about?”

  “The ghost making all those girls commit suicide. He’s been visiting me in my dreams, creating this world where everything was okay and there weren’t any ghosts. I fell for it all. I’m just like those girls, I’m weak. I can’t control myself. It’s all my fault. If I’d acted sooner, those girls wouldn’t be dead, but I just wanted to sleep all the time. I wanted to be in my dreamworld. That’s all I wanted.”

  “A ghost has been haunting your dreams?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “For how long?”

  “A few weeks now,” I admit.

  Jack examines my face with his worried eyes. He has me held at arm’s length, and the space between us seems alive with energy. Now that my ugly crying fit is over I can finally concentrate on the here and now, being in this small space engulfed in Jack, his jacket, his arms, it makes my stomach flip and my skin tingle. While everything has been going on in my dreams—or nightmares—I’d almost forgotten about Jack. But now I’m brought back to reality with a thump. A thump that’s here to remind me of how attracted I am to him.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” He exhales through his nose and shak
es his head.

  Thinking that Jack is angry and disappointed with me creates a lump in my throat. I pause for a moment, pulling myself away from him and leaning back into the seat. What comes out when I decide to speak ends up being the truth. “I think, on some level, I knew it was wrong, and that’s why I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want you, or Lacey, or Willa, to tell me that I was being haunted. I wanted it to be real. Even after I spoke to the surviving girl and realised she’d been going through the same thing, I still didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want it to be true.” I pause to wipe my eyes. “These last few months have been so hard. I… I don’t think I’ve been handling it. I see more than just ghosts, I hallucinate too. I keep seeing these corpses hanging from the ceilings of the rooms I walk into. I see my mother when she was possessed. I see all the ghosts I’ve sent on to the spiritworld. I’m losing my mind.” When it’s over, I’m spent. My body is like a hollow husk and I just want to curl up and not face any of it. I lift my knees to my chin and press my toes down on the seat, waiting for Jack to speak.

  “No one expects you to deal with this alone,” he says. “You have to let us in. I know you’ve only known Willa and I for just over a month, but we’re amongst the handful of people you can talk to about everything you’ve been through. Never go through life thinking your life is less normal than anyone else’s life because that’s a dangerous way to isolate yourself. There’s always someone you can turn to.” He places his hand on his chest. “Me. I don’t make promises lightly. That’s because I don’t break them. I’ll be here no matter what. I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what you need.”

  “Jack, I don’t know how I feel about you—”