Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

That’s when I welled up, my throat burning.

“Where are they?” I managed to ask.

He laughed gently. “That’s been your question of the day, hasn’t it? But I can’t tell you any more than you’ve learned. Not even I know what’s beyond us, because once you go there, you don’t come back. It might be heaven or hell, nirvana, or even a parallel dimension where everyone gets another chance in a reincarnated life.”

“You don’t even know?”

“No.”

I had the feeling he was lying to me, just as he might’ve been when he’d so “earnestly” told me about Elizabeth moving on. But I wanted to hear about my parents and decide for myself if he was telling the truth. I wasn’t about to sass him again.

“My mom and dad are happy?” I asked.

“Yeah, Jenny, wherever they are, I can guarantee it. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows that good people move on and get their just reward, like humans have always hoped.”

Now that I had a body, I was able to tear up, and my vision went bleary. Fake Dean became a watery blob of white T-shirt and blond hair. I didn’t want him to see me crying, though, and I turned away.

He was right behind me now. “Hey, I didn’t think that would make you weepy. That’s good news, isn’t it?”

I nodded, speechless, my throat scratched so thoroughly that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to talk again.

I could hear him breathing right behind me, and goose bumps covered my skin. If he put his hand on my shoulder, I might break apart. If he took one more step toward me, I might crumble.

Finally, I swallowed enough so that my throat was better. “Why’re you telling me these things?”

“Because you’ve wondered, and I just want to see you happy.” He blew out a breath. “Most of all, though, I don’t like to see you sad.”

I looked up and cuffed a rogue tear away from my cheek. Once, when real Dean and I had fought about something stupid—I couldn’t even remember what it was—he’d said those exact words to me.

This Dean’s words swayed me more than I would’ve liked.

He must’ve seen that in me, because he was more forthcoming now, like I’d let down my guard a little more than I should have and that’s what he’d been hoping for.

“And here’s more to keep you from being sad,” he said. “Just because Elizabeth Dalton was murdered, that doesn’t mean she had to stick around and haunt this plane. Not every spirit lingers or falls into a time loop. Sometimes there’s so much anguish connected to their deaths or the people they leave behind that they can’t stand the aftermath. Some spirits seek the light right away. Others go your route and fall into a numb imprint.”

I held my breath. Was he about to tell me something to do with my death?

When he put his hand on my shoulder, I didn’t shrug him off. He was so warm. Not even Gavin’s life force or a fire could match the glow this entity put in me. And, honestly, I sank into his touch ever so slightly, missing it so bad. Just wanting to relive Dean for a few more minutes.

His voice was low and quiet now. “You’re wondering about the night you died.”

I couldn’t even swallow because of the lump in my throat, so I only clipped out a nod.

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “And that’s because you’re not prepared to know. I’m not going to tell you, either, because I’ll be damned if I send you back into a loop with the shock of the details at this point.”

I found my voice. “I already saw the ax, the mask.”

When I shut the images right out of my mind, I guess that only proved his point, because his fingers bunched on my shoulder, massaging me, getting a better grip on me.

My gut wrenched, twisted, but in a way that heated me up even more.

I even forgot he wasn’t really my Dean, because sweet gestures like this had defined my old boyfriend. He would slide his hand over to cover my collarbone, moving his fingers gently, making me go weak, knowing that it would distract me from whatever issue was dogging me that day.

“If you won’t tell me about my murder,” I said, breathless, “then tell me about the Edgetts.”

His voice eased through me, all vibration and warmth. “You mean that Gavin guy?”

Jealousy?

Even that turned me on in a way it shouldn’t have, just like Gavin himself. Both of these guys were bad ideas, but maybe I’d been without men in my life for so long that I was a glutton for them, no matter who they were.

A beating instant passed as Dean’s touch got a little more possessive on my shoulder. I held back a small sound of pleasure.

Get away from him, my common sense was telling me. But common sense was a distant second to everything else right now.

“I’ll tell you one thing about the Edgetts,” he said. “Watch out. That girl Wendy captured your image on her camera phone.”

I recalled when she’d aimed her phone at me, then the flash. Shit.

“Tonight, she shared the pictures with Gavin,” Dean said.

His fingers branded my skin and I bowed my head, totally under his control.

Needing his touch so badly.

That was a ghost’s curse, wasn’t it? Needing what we couldn’t easily get?

His hand eased up to my neck, skimming over my flesh. My body responded, starving for touch after being robbed of it for so long. My skin prickled, my nipples tightened, the spot between my legs ached hard. My eyes closed, fighting it.

Go away, Jen. Don’t be stupid .

But I was staying, remembering Dean’s skin against mine. Remembering how he used to run his fingertips up my spine and down again, then kiss his way up my back to the nape of my neck, melting me.

Even though I had a body, I felt as if I was floating again. Rising, full of heat, dizzy with wanting…

In a haze, I opened my eyes, and I didn’t see grass or sidewalk around me anymore.

I saw purple. Stars floating past.

The star place?

Just as I started coming out of my lapse, I felt him holding on to me as we rose. And I saw that those stars were closer than before, and they had that strange shape I’d noticed during the first visit.

But now, so near, they definitely looked like…

Pale, glowing, hanging bodies?

Jarred, I screamed, breaking away from fake Dean, falling, falling through the purple…

As I tumbled through space, using all my energy to control my essence, he didn’t follow me. But why wasn’t he giving chase?

Rushing toward the ground, I thought for sure I was about to splat over the asphalt below me.

Pull up!

I summoned everything I had, curving up and scooping into the sky just before I could smack into the street.

Hovering, trembling, I heaved in a pseudobreath, realizing I was back in my old neighborhood, the streetlights yellow and wan. I looked up to the sky at the true stars, wondering what was actually hanging and glowing in the “star” place.

And why fake Dean had called himself a keeper instead of a reaper.

If there was one lesson I’d learned in these past twenty-four hours, it was that I couldn’t trust anyone but my new ghost pals.

Amanda Lee certainly wasn’t a finalist in my Inner Circle Sweepstakes. And do I really have to mention the entity that tried to seduce me up to his star place, just like a predator who invites women into his apartment and does heaven knows what to them?

I just wished I had the capacity to shrug off fake Dean as I’d done with Amanda Lee. But it seemed that he was intrigued by me and my different-strokes ghost attitude.

Even worse, those things he’d told me about Elizabeth, my parents, the afterlife, and the Edgetts had really done a number on my mentality. How much of his information had been valid and how much had he just been making up in order to lull me into a position vulnerable enough to take me to his star place? And what would happen the next time he tried to lure me with slick words and soft touches that he knew would undo me?