Perception (Apparition Investigations #1)

Case #1: Villanova Apartments: Part 12

My arms tightened around myself. I sat, shivering, on the couch. Part of it due to the ghostly aura surrounding me. Most of it was remembering the feel of Noah's hands on my wrists, his weight pushing me down. Trapping me.

I shuddered again and Cyril let out another heavy sigh. "You should have let us..."

"What?" I asked in the silence that followed. "Hurt him? Kill him? No."

"He deserved it," Oliver grumbled, his voice coming from near the apartment door. Disgust radiated from his voice. "Attacking a woman like that."

Another shiver went through my arm. "I'm fine, Cyril. Really."

The chill left and I heard Cyril's voice a few moments later coming from across the room. "If he comes back, I'm finishing what I started."

When I shuddered again, it was for entirely different reasons. My mind snapped back to Noah hurtling across the living room. The sound of his back connecting with the wall. The whoosh of metal flying through the air. Screaming. Shouting. Chills. Fear.

I hadn't been afraid of the ghosts until that point.

But I was now.

My eyes fell on the debris scattered around the living room. Books ripped from shelves, the torn tapestry, the ottoman flung across the room. The lighter knick-knacks we'd used to decorate littered the floor. Our curtains had been ripped off their rods—all except one, which hung limply in the window.

It'd been like standing in a tornado. Cyril's fury had turned into wind and madness as objects flew. Noah had taken the brunt of that wrath, and when he'd left, he'd been covered in budding bruises and red cuts.

Oliver had stayed beside me, his lingering touch on my shoulder chilling. The howling wind, the levitating objects, the taste of ozone in the air—it had all been Cyril.

One ghost.

Just one.

"He's not coming back," I said, my arms tightening around me. "I won't—he's not coming back."

He sighed again. "I'm sorry I lost control like that."

"It's fine."

"Stella, I—"

I stood up from the couch. "It's fine," I repeated, grabbing the nearest thrown book and smoothing out it's wrinkled pages. Bronte would pitch a fit when she came back.

God, Bronte. What was I going to tell her?

"Stella—"

"I ordered him to get off of me," I said, not looking up. Not that I could see either one of them but still, I couldn't look up into the room. Instead, I picked up another book from the floor. "My voice...it changed."

"We know," Oliver said. "We heard it."

"Have you ever heard anything like it before?"

"I haven't—neither of us have." Oliver sighed and I could hear his frustration. "And you can't remember how you did it?"

"No."

"You sounded angry."

"I was angry."

"Maybe that's part of it?"