Taylor awoke slowly, his mind clouded with a need for more sleep. As he came to, he realized that he was leaning against something, and as his mind connected the dots, he realized that it was a someone.
He was about to tense up as he felt an arm tighten around him and a hand shift a bit over his mouth, but then he opened his eyes. His body did tense up then, but definitely for a different reason.
Caleb was standing in the corner, staring across the room and out of the small window there. His eyes rarely blinked as he continued to look, motionless.
Since he didn't seem to be in immediate danger from the ghost, Taylor turned his attention to who was holding him. He remembered that they had moved the couch into the spare bedroom since he had wanted to be as far away from the chalkboard as possible.
Glancing toward the door, he noticed that it was shut and the lock was still in place.
He had to have walked right through.
Next, he put together that Adon was the one behind him, his scent easily distinguishable now that he wasn't panicking.
But why is he covering my mouth? Caleb is just a ghost. He can't do anything to us.
Taylor was just starting to work on freeing himself from Adon's hold when Caleb jerked his head to the side abruptly, his eyes going wider than they should have been able to... and then they just stayed like that.
Shit. Got it. Don't move.
After a tense several moments his body seemed to relax and his eyes went back to normal as he looked down and to the side, toward his left hand. It was closed around something, but whatever it was, was too small to see.
As the time stretched on, Taylor wondered if Caleb would ever leave. He'd had to pee since waking up and definitely wasn't keen on doing so on the sofa. Or in Adon's presence.
Thankfully, right when he had decided to start trying to get up again, the familiar hitting sound echoed from the other room, immediately drawing Caleb's attention. The boy turned and looked toward the door, as if seeing his step brother through it without any issue. When the hit sounded for a rare consecutive, second time, Caleb darted through the door and was gone.
Adon's hand and arm fell away immediately as their bodies sagged against the sofa and they sighed in unison.
"I thought that we could only see ghosts in dreams, for the most part?" Taylor mumbled as he took a deep breath, then gave out another sigh.
Adon took a few moments to respond, probably because he'd been awake longer than Taylor, watching Caleb in the room.
"That's not a ghost."
Taylor stood up, eying something tiny that Caleb had seemingly left on the floor.
"What are you talking about? Of course he's a ghost. He's been showing me his dreams since I moved in," he said as he slowly walked up and knelt down beside the item. Or really, items.
Adon joined him after a moment, both of them frowning down at the tiny little fish skeleton on the floor.
"Ghosts can't carry objects. And neither can banshees, unless they take them when they die. Even if he had taken this skeleton, he couldn't have walked right through that door. Nikolai can't," Adon said, sending a shiver down Taylor's spine.
"But they said that he's a ghost. That he isn't very powerful," Taylor replied, trying to put the pieces together, but at the same time, not wanting to.
Adon picked up the little set of bones and looked toward the door.
"He's a wraith, Taylor. I did some more research about them yesterday before we came back over, and after you mentioned that you saw him writing at the chalkboard while you were awake... it's what makes the most sense."
He didn't care what made sense. Especially if the answer to their questions was wraith.
"Let's just, check on Nikolai and have some breakfast," he mumbled as he reached for the door handle.
It was cold, but that was no surprise. He would never need to run the A/C again if he kept Nikolai in his wall.
The things you think when you have a banshee problem.
Turning the handle, he slowly tugged open the door, greatly relieved that there was nothing there to greet him on the other side.
To his relief, as well, his fish was perfectly fine swimming around in his little tank, eating little flakes...
"You didn't feed the fish, did you?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Adon walked ahead of him, stopping in front of the tank before looking over toward the chalkboard. It looked like someone had tried to write something else over the previous warning, but had run out of chalk dust.
Do I really want to grind more?
He quickly ground a lot more dust for Caleb to use as Adon went to the bathroom, appreciating the written messages instead of forcing the ghost, or wraith, or whatever he was, to switch to physical ones.
"I texted Sasha to ask her friend about what had happened. Waiting on a reply," Adon said as he yawned, emerging from the bathroom.
Taylor nodded and quickly went in to relieve himself, then splash a bit of water on his face after washing his hands. He needed a shower, but he definitely didn't want to be caught naked when Caleb suddenly appeared again.
When he emerged from the room he could smell eggs cooking, making his stomach grumble. He'd passed out last night without eating and was definitely ready to eat a horse.
"Yours are just about ready," Adon said as he added a bit of cheese to the top, then scrambled the eggs more with a spatula to mix it in.
Taylor stared, transfixed, until he noticed the little fish bones next to his live fish's tank.
"I wonder where those came from," he asked, not really expecting an answer.
Adon plated Taylor's food, adding two pieces of toast to the dish before handing it to him.
"If I had to guess, downstairs."
Taylor nodded as he sat down on one of the small chairs he'd brought. He didn't have a dinner table yet, so he just sat in the kitchen to eat.
"Considering your dream, it made sense that he'd had a pet fish, but looking at this neighborhood, I doubt that his collection would have spanned a wall of fish tanks. Maybe that was just his wishful thinking?" Adon said as he got some eggs cracked into the pan for himself.
"And a hot tub. We can't really get down there to check, anyways" Taylor said, about to add something about not really wanting to know when he heard a knock at the door.
"Take one guess?" Adon said with a chuckle.
Taylor opened the door a moment later, but where he expected Sasha to start yelling right off the bat, well, she did. But it wasn't for the reason he expected.
With an ear-shattering screech she grabbed his arm and yanked him out the door, then slammed it shut, making Taylor stumble into the grass in order to stay on his feet. He whirled around as soon as he caught his balance.
"What the heck, Sash?"
The girl grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him an abrupt shake.
"There was someone else behind your wall, Tay!" she shouted, her voice loud enough to make him wince and her older friend's, whom she'd brought with her, or more likely, gave her a ride, dog, bark.
Oh, Caleb was standing with Nikolai?
It made sense.
"That was Caleb," he said before nudging past her to open the door again.
Nothing but Nikolai's blurry form was behind the wall when he looked, so he turned his attention to Adon, who was leaning against the counter taking a bite of eggs.
"I'm guessing she saw our friend?"
Taylor nodded, glad that he'd set his plate down before going to get the door or it likely would have been broken. He picked it back up and finished off his last few bites as Sasha and her friend slowly walked inside.
"Tay, you really shouldn't stay here anymore. That wasn't a ghost," Sasha said as the man's dog began to whimper and look around.
Martin patted the dog's head and nodded toward the wall.
"We both saw it. That other boy isn't a ghost, Taylor. You need to find a strong exorcist. That thing can easily kill you."
Adon swallowed a bite of food before replying.
"He saw us earlier. Was in that room with us," Adon said as he pointed toward the second bedroom.
"Why do you have tiny fish bones on your counter?" Martin asked as he walked closer, redirecting the conversation slightly.
Taylor stepped up beside him and shrugged.
"Caleb was standing in the second bedroom with us, like Adon mentioned. He walked through the locked door when he left, leaving those behind on the floor."
Martin nudged one of the bones. Before he could do much else, Caleb was standing beside him, staring with his too-wide eyes. Seemingly knowing to not move or talk again, Martin remained still until Caleb relaxed and turned his attention to the fish bones. He slowly reached up and picked them up, then turned and looked at the little live fish swimming about in its tank.
Wait. It's actually trying to swim closer to Caleb?
He doubted the fish even understood what Caleb was, but it was interesting to see its reaction.
Probably because he fed you earlier.
Taylor was about to risk saying the boy's name when he heard a deep growl start up from behind the wall. All of their attention, including Caleb's, turned toward Nikolai. In an instant Caleb was gone, then reappeared behind the wall with the banshee.
The growling quieted at that moment as the ethereal light swirled around the wraith.
"Taylor," Sasha whispered as she slowly started to back toward the door.
"We need to leave. This is serious and very dangerous."
Taylor turned to look at her and was going to respond when she backed right into Caleb. His body was solid as she froze against it, wisely not moving a muscle or uttering a word.
The sound of Nikolai's baseball bat echoed off the wall, making Caleb vanish again before reappear next to his step-brother, but not behind the wall this time.
Sasha didn't waste any time getting her butt out of the house. Martin and his dog were out a second after her, with Adon hot on the their heels, but stopping in the doorway to gesture for Taylor to hurry up.
A breaking, tearing sound took Taylor's attention away from escaping momentarily as he looked back toward the wall.
Oh. Shit.
Caleb was tearing away pieces of the drywall.
Thank god he's trapped behind cement.
That's what he'd thought, at least, until Caleb turned around and Taylor noticed that Martin had brought his duffel bag again... and dropped it when he'd run out.
Oh no.
He didn't dare try to stop him as he walked over to it and slowly knelt down. Instead of bothering with the zipper, Caleb tore it open easily with his bare hands, then removed the tools he needed to get through the concrete.
The second he turned and started back toward the wall Taylor high-tailed it out of there, slamming the door on his way out. He stumbled into Adon's arms as he turned back toward the house, worried that Caleb had followed him.
No one was there, and as he approached the window to glance inside, he realized why.
Freeing your brother would definitely take priority over catching a useless human.
Caleb was easily dealing with the concrete wall with the help of Martin's tools.
Now, not only did he have a wraith on his hands. Soon, he would have a loose banshee, too.
With a nice metal baseball bat, too. Oh the joys of buying your first house.