Chapter 2
Felix
I sit in the middle of my old bedroom waiting for Callie to return from the bathroom. She is… wow. Beautiful is an understatement. And funny! But in that way only some people can appreciate while most find it uncomfortable. Then again, it takes that kind of person to talk to a ghost like it’s no big deal.
She has an amazing laugh, with a huskiness that can really get a guy’s blood pumping. Well, if I was still capable of such things. But it’s definitely something she isn’t used to doing. I could see the warm surprise on her face every time she did it. Ugh. What kind of life has she lived where laughing is a foreign concept?
She said she has complicated family issues, but the haunting shadows that live in her clear water grey eyes and the purple smudges that hang beneath them say that’s a hell of an understatement. What she doesn’t know is, tomorrow, I’m likely going to dump a whole lot more complicated on her.
I groan, scrubbing at my face with both hands. In the discussion about who can and can’t see me, I left out one small but important detail; the supernatural is real, and I don’t mean just my ghost self. Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. And what will probably be the most important to Callie, Nephilim; the other beings that can see ghosts, emotional attachments or not.
It’s obvious Callie knows nothing about the supernatural, which means I’m going to have to break the news. Hey, Callie. On top of whatever crap your family dumped on you, they also left out that you’re descended from angels. Yeah, that’s definitely going to go well.
I flop back onto the floor and stare up at the ceiling, the light turning it a pale yellow. One thing for sure, I really like this girl. Some of it might have something to do with the fact that I haven’t talked to anyone outside of my best friends for the past four months, and a beautiful, funny girl they’re not, but I think there’s more to it.
In a way, she makes me forget I’m dead, which is weird since we talked about it quite a lot, but it’s like my ghost status is some odd quirk and not the crippling reality that leaves me unable to interact with the world. Something I forgot when I attempted to sit on the kitchen counter earlier and fell through it. Sigh. If I’m thinking about it, I can kind of hover over things to appear like I’m sitting on them, but as previously stated, Callie distracts me.
The embarrassment was worth it, though, when Callie started laughing so hard tears streamed down her face. Her aunt was so shocked; as the saying goes, you could’ve knocked her down with a feather.
A sad ache clenches where my heart used to be. If I accomplish anything in my remaining time, it’s going to be to make Callie laugh so much that it’ll be as natural as breathing.
My mouth twitches remembering Callie trying to come up with a reason for her peals of laughter; something about how an old classmate had shot spaghetti out his nose during lunch one time. They were having spaghetti for dinner.
Her aunt didn’t seem to get it, probably because it was a lie, but there was clear relief in her gaze hearing the unfettered sound of her niece’s laughter. At least it appears that whatever Callie’s complicated family stuff, her aunt doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Stairs, however, do. A combination of sorrow and anger builds inside of me recalling the open terror that gripped her when she stood at the top of the stairs. Her knuckles were white as one hand clamped down on the banister and the other curled into a fist. Her golden skin paled, and her whole body shook. In that moment, I hated being dead in a more visceral way than normal. I don’t like being dead, but this… was so much more. I hated that I couldn’t reach out and hold her hand. Uncurl her fist and lace her fingers with mine. Or hell, pick her up and carry her downstairs. She’s so small, I’d be surprised if she was more than 115 lbs soaking wet.
I just met this girl, and I’m already imagining what it would be like to hold her. To breathe her in and run my fingers through her hair. Imagining impossible things.
I release a frustrated growl. I really hate being dead. Meet the girl of my dreams, and I’m a freaking ghost. Fate really was a cruel bitch.
Callie opens the door and pads in with bare feet, thankfully interrupting my downward spiral into self-pity. Had that party a while ago, and it sucked. No one came, and I couldn’t eat the cake.
She smirks down at me, as I lean up on my elbows, my legs splayed out on the floor. She’s wearing red flannel pajama bottoms with a matching red, long sleeved shirt. Her streaked blonde hair hangs wet and loose down to the middle of her back. I resist the urge to sigh like a twelve-year-old girl with a crush on a teen pop idol. That would be embarrassing.
She flips off the light, the moonlight shining through the windows more than enough to see by. She walks around my legs, which is nice, since she could technically walk through them without issue. Her actions only reinforce my feelings of real boy status. Crap. There’s that ache again.
Callie pulls back the blanket and sheet on the bed and climbs under them, immediately rolling onto her stomach. She turns her head to face me.
The bed frame is mine... or was mine? …but the mattress and bedding were replaced. All my stuff currently resides at my friend, Nolan’s place, his McMansion having plenty of space to house it.
My great aunt Gertrude inherited the house after my family’s untimely demise. My friends helped her clear out the place and get it ready for renters. I think Aunt Gertie hopes Callie’s aunt puts in an offer to buy the house. She’s a widow and can’t keep up with the place. Now that I’ve met Callie, I hope she does too. I like the idea of Callie making a life here. Of making my old room hers. I’m not ready to think too hard about why I feel this way.
A wry smile tugs at Callie’s full lips, but there’s a tightness in her eyes that worries me.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says after a moment, “but, uh, I don’t think we’ve reached the Edward Cullen stage of our relationship.”
At first, I don’t get it. What does an emo, sparkly vampire have to do with anything? Then it clicks, and I bust up laughing.
“Got it,” I snort. “No creepily standing in the corner watching you sleep.”
She bites her bottom lip, and I nearly groan. Being dead really, really sucks.
“I could, I don’t know, turn on the TV downstairs or something,” she offers. “I’ll tell my aunt I need the noise. This place is weirdly quiet.”
“No, it’s okay,” I reply, warmed by the thoughtfulness of this girl I only met a few hours ago. “I can creepily stalk one of my friends. Need to talk to them anyway.”
“About me?” she whispers, her brows furrow and her gaze is anxious.
“Yeah.” I get up off the floor, walk over to her, then crouch down so we’re eye level. My fingers tingle with the desire to smooth out the worry lines painted on her face. “Don’t worry, though, okay? You can trust my friends. They’re a little weird…” understatement of the century, “but they’re as solid as they come.”
She snorts. “I think I work better with weird.”
Let’s hope. I offer up a wink and a grin, before whispering, “Goodnight, pretty girl. See you bright and early tomorrow morning in front of the school.” Luckily, there’s only one high school in Twin Cedar Pass.
She giggles, the sweet sound chasing away the tension in her eyes. “Goodnight, Casper.”
I chuckle, and after she closes her eyes, I reach for the anchor that I know is Kaleb. He feels the most unshakable of the bunch, like a mountain or a redwood; not because he’s a better friend, just because that’s the way he is. He’s like our Obi Wan; the more mature one from A New Hope, not the snarky one from the movies that shall not be named.
With a gentle tug, I blink out of my old room and appear in Kaleb’s. He’s lying in bed reading what appears to be one of those annoying human behavior books his parents make him read. The room is dimly lit with only the bedside lamp on. He startles with my entrance, dropping his book in his lap.
His dark eyes turn saucer shaped, and he angrily whispers, “What are you doing here? If my parents catch you, they won’t care that you have unfinished business, particularly since I’m not of age to be helping you with it.”
“Then you’d better keep it down,” I whisper back. This time I concentrate, and I’m able to sit/ hover on the side of the bed. “This is really important.”
Calm, patient Kaleb makes an appearance. He sets his book on his bedside table and gives me his full attention. “What is it? Are you okay?”
He has one of those deep radio voices that girls go nuts for. They titter like wild birds every time he says good morning, and he’s pretty much the designated reader for every English class.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” A heavy breath whooshes out of me. Even though I’m dead, I can’t seem to break the habit of breathing, even though it literally does nothing. I can’t even smell. “So, this is going to be a weird question, but is there a chance someone can be nephilim and not know it?”
He frowns and looks off in the distance, the expression he wears when he’s thinking. To me, it always looks like he’s going through a mental rolodex, picking through all the knowledge in that big brain of his. I’m smart, but he’s out of this world smart, quite literally, being nephilim and all.
After a moment, his gaze shifts back to me. He always looks people in the eye when he talks to them. “It’s possible, I suppose. If only one parent was nephilim… any coupled nephilim are recorded… and he or she kept what they were a secret, then something happened to that parent before they could tell their offspring. Granted that means the nephilim parent would’ve broken all ties with the community first. If anyone knew of their death, the child would’ve immediately been fostered by another nephilim family. Why?” He keeps his tone light and scholarly, but there’s a bunching tension in his shoulders that doesn’t bode well.
“You see, Aunt Gertie was finally able to rent out my old house to out of towners that didn’t know about the whole mass murder thing, and I wanted to check them out. See what kind of people they were.” I rub at the back of my neck, a nervous gesture I’d almost given up since I died. There isn’t much to be nervous about when you’re a ghost. “Well, it’s a woman and her niece. Nice people, by the way. Her niece is actually staying in my old room…”
“And?” Kaleb waves his hand in a circular motion, encouraging me to get to the point.
“And,” I huff, “the niece can see me.”
“What?” Kaleb cries, sitting up and throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “Can the aunt?”
“Nope,” I assure him. “I was walking all over the house, and she didn’t even twitch.”
He nods. “Okay,” he whispers absently to himself then stands up and walks over to his dresser.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I ask, as he pulls out a pair of jeans. He’s currently in a pair of grey sweats and a white t-shirt that practically glows in the dim light against his dark skin.
“Going to see this girl. She must be terrified. Knowing nothing of our world, then suddenly seeing a spirit in her house.” He strips off his sweats, flashing me an eyeful of blue boxer briefs, before quickly throwing on his jeans. “And I can only imagine how her abilities are manifesting, though it’s strange that her wings haven’t surfaced yet. At least, I’m assuming they haven’t. How old is she?”
“Whoa, hold up,” I squawk, reaching for him, and my hand going right through his shoulder. Argh! “First, she’s our age, and after I convinced her I wasn’t a hallucination, she was pretty cool about the whole ghost thing. Second, it’s 10:30 at night, she was going to bed when I left, and third, I told her my friends were people she could trust, which will be harder to believe if you go charging over there.”
Kaleb turns to look at me, stopping before reaching into his drawer for socks. “She’s seventeen?”
“Somewhere around there. We didn’t really get into specifics.” I pause, realizing I don’t actually know a whole lot about her, other than she has a complicated family history and a strong dislike for stairs. Thank God, I can’t blush anymore. “I told her I’d meet her at the front of the school tomorrow morning with one of you guys. You can get the specifics then.”
He looks at me intently, the scholar in him burning holes into my head. “Did she mention anything strange about herself? Increased strength, near perfect memory, or you know, wings suddenly sprouting from her shoulders?”
“She strikes me as a private person, so no, we didn’t really get into whether she had super powers,” I grumble, annoyed that the whole time I was with her, we talked about me. “I wanted to talk to you first, before I went ‘Hey, you might be a nephilim’ on her. Finding out she’s essentially a lackey for angels for the rest of her life seemed like a day two type of conversation.”
Kaleb sighs, running his hand over his short, black curls. “You’re right,” he mutters, sitting back down on his bed. He groans. “What if she’s dark nephilim? It would explain why she would’ve been hidden from her own kind.”
I suddenly feel like I’m made of ice. Skip being a lackey for angels. Try being destined to fight demons and pretty much everything evil for the rest of her life, because she just so happened to be a descendant of a fallen angel. Yeah, I could see that as a good reason to keep her in the dark. Maybe one of her complicated family issues was her witnessing her parents being killed by demons. It’d explain why she thought she was crazy.
“Crap!” I plop down next to Kaleb, except I fall through his bed instead. My head barely pokes out above the mattress. “Double crap.”
Kaleb chuckles, more breath than sound.
“Whatever she is, we’ll help her,” he assures me. Ah. There’s my Obi Wan. He fidgets a bit before asking, “You staying the night?”
I snort. “And have your parents send me off to the pearly gates early, no thank you. I’ll go stay with Nolan or Connor.”
He nods and gets up to retrieve his sweats. “I’ll make sure Donovan is up early, so we can both meet her before school. That way she knows no matter what she faces, she isn’t alone.”
Getting up off the floor, I tell him, “Thanks. You’re a good friend, Kaleb.”
He shrugs and concentrates on putting his sweats back on. He has a hard time with compliments. Parents expecting perfection will do that to a person. They’re nice people who clearly love their son, but they demand a lot out of him.
He turns and looks at me. “You’re a good friend too, Felix. We’re all lucky to still have you around.”
“Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, stuffing my hands into my pockets. Thank God I can at least interact with the stuff I’m wearing; I don’t know how I’d handle it if I went through myself.
He gives me a sharp nod before crawling back into bed. “’Night. See you tomorrow.”
“’Night.” I give him a nod goodbye, then search for the smooth feeling that is Nolan. If cool could be an actual sensation, that’s what his anchor feels like.
Ugh. I hope he isn’t with a girl.