“So how long have you and Grant been going out?” I asked Miguel, leaning back in my seat as he pulled up to a red light.
To be honest, I'd almost completely forgotten Miguel existed. Yeah, we'd exchanged numbers when we'd met in the library, but after that, it hadn't even crossed my mind to call him. But here I was, on the way to his grandma's house with him. The memory of our last conversation still rang in my head, leaving me even more curious as to why he'd asked me to come with him all the way to another city, just to visit one of his relatives.
“Well, thanks so much for the ride, I really appreciate it.” Miguel had said, digging around in his pocket for a second, before pulling out his cellphone, and handing it to me. “Put your number in it, I might be able to help you with your little ghost hunt later.” he smirked, glancing at the stack of paranormal themed books that were balanced precariously on the centre console.
“I think I can handle it by myself,” I'd told him with a nervous laugh, but entered my phone number anyways. I'd just wanted to get home and start my search for information that would help Sammy pass on as soon as possible, and Miguel was majorly slowing down my progress.
“Yeah?” he'd grunted, getting out of the car, “We'll see about that.”
Was is possible that Miguel knew something about Sammy that I didn't? I mean, he was the singer of Cheating Yesterday, and spent a large portion of his time fixated on his band. He didn't really strike me as the kind of guy who would sit around reading up on poltergeists and whatever, or even like, read at all. It just didn't make sense.
“Grant and I have been going out for about 7 months now, I think.” he informed me, snapping me back to reality. I nodded slightly, glancing over at him as he pulled into the driveway of a tiny brick house with a sprawling front yard. I had no idea where we were at all. Seriously. I didnt even know what city.
“You do realize if you cheat on him or anything, I'm going to have to kill you, right?” I informed him darkly, undoing my seat belt and stepping out onto the pavement.
“C'mon Harley, I would never cheat on anyone. I mean, someone being stupid enough to date me is a once in a lifetime thing, I'm not gonna mess it up.” he laughed as I followed him up to the front door. A large lion head shaped knocker hung in the middle of it, but he disregarded it and instead just let himself in.
“Yo, G-ma!” he called, and a few seconds later, a tiny woman bustled into the room, looking dismayed at the fact that he'd just burst in unannounced, and, to make matters worse, had even brought company with him.
“I tell you to knock. You don't knock.” she scolded him in a thick accent that I couldn't quite place. She had the same caramel colored skin as Miguel, and a head full of curly black hair that she'd piled on top of her head like a beehive, and tied back with a bandana, much like Miguel always did with his dread locks. Not only was she the shortest woman I'd ever seen, but she was probably the oldest as well.
“Well if you'd lock the door, I wouldn't be able to just walk right in, now would I?” he pointed out, but this just caused her to scowl.
“No sass.” she snapped, slapping him in the thigh with a wooden spoon before shuffling through a doorway to my left, that was covered by a large sheet of purple velvet, obscuring the room behind it.
Miguel and I exchanged a look for a brief second, before he shrugged and ducked through the thresh hold, motioning for me to follow him.
On the other side of the curtain, was an episode of Hoarders. Ancient looking leather-bound volumes were stacked up to the ceiling on all four sides of me, overheard cabinets displaying even more books, even older than the ones against the wall. Right in the middle of the tiny den was a desk, completely covered in -surprise, surprise- more books.
“Sit.” she ordered, taking a seat at the large armchair in the center of the room, and motioned for Miguel and I to take a seat on two large piles of books that appeared to be her version of stools. I did as she said, fearing what she'd do to me if I didn't. Hit me with that wooden spoon of hers, probably.
“So. Sammy.” she said in that no-nonsense voice of hers. I shot Miguel a look, as if to say what did you tell her? But he just shrugged, looking about as confused as I felt. By the looks of it, he hadn't told her anything.
“Uhm...yeah. How do yo-”
“I am channeler. I see boy. He loves you very much, misses you also. He...” she struggled for words, furrowing her brow in concentration as she apparently listened to Sammy.
“Murder.” she said suddenly, her eyes growing wide. “Solve it, he goes on.”
Well, yeah, I'd kinda already figured that part out on my own. Although, there was still one thing I hadn't been able to figure out...
And so, I spent the next few minutes filling her in on what had happened with the steam in the mirror this morning, and how whoever had done it hadn't been Dallas or Sammy. At this, she'd looked very concerned.
“Do not know how to explain in English.” she informed me, before launching into a full on ramble to Miguel, in what I guessed was Spanish. Then again, considering the only Spanish I knew was amigo and fiesta, I couldn't be totally sure.
After she was done, Miguel turned to me, a doubtful expression on his face, and said, “Apparently, Sammy doesn't have enough power to fully communicate like that. He can do small bursts of stuff, but then immediately has to rest for a few days. The longer you're stuck wandering around on earth, the stronger you get. So he went around, did some favours for some very important people, and then finally convinced this really old guy who died in like 1840 to show up and get that message to you.” he paused for a second, then looked at me with a frown. “That's nasty. Some old, dead guy was lurking in your bathroom, and there's like a 500% chance he saw you naked.”
“He hasn't gotten any action in like, nearly 175 years. Can you really blame him for wanting to get a look at all this?” I asked, motioning down at my body. There was a beat of silence, before Miguel and I both burst out laughing at the same time.
“Good one.”
“Thanks, I try.”
“Children.” Miguels grandma scolded, slamming her tiny fist on to the table top. “We must hurry. He is fading.” she said, pointing frantically to the air behind me. I glanced over my shoulder, but as usual, I couldn't see him. It sucked, especially considering everyone on the face of the earth could see him except for me, apparently.
Okay, so maybe I was exaggerating, and it was just Mickey and Miguel's grandma who could see him. But still. It was super unfair. Like, I was his best friend, shouldn't I be allowed to join this magical ghosty club, too? I mean, we'd been inseparable when he'd been alive, that had to count for something, right?
Apparently not, because as soon as it occurred to me to ask Sammy what the phone number he'd given me was for, it was too late. Miguel's grandma went very still, and said, “He's gone.”
********************************
“Call me when you get home so I know you didn't get murdered!” Grant called out the door after me, and I smiled, waving at him and Miguel as I trudged down their driveway. Miguel had dropped me off at Grant's house since he was headed back there anyways, and considering I only lived about a five minute walk from Grant's new place, I decided I could make it back to my house. My real house, not just Mickey and Poe's apartment.
Sighing, I popped up the collar on my coat as I shoulder against the wind. It made me look like a total douchebag, but managed to make me slightly warmer. No way was I taking my regular way home in this weather, I was going to use every single short cut I knew. Which, as it turned out, was a ton of them. Most of them were illegal. Well, okay. All of them were illegal. But still.
I mean, yeah. I guess it could technically be called trespassing, I thought to myself as I swung my legs over a chain link fence, but no one lives here anymore anyways.
Or at least, that's what I'd thought.
But when I landed on the pavement on the other side of the fence and looked up at the narrow alley before me, I realized I'd been wrong. Very wrong.
“Hey!” a guy shouted at me, running towards me. That wasn't the scariest part of it, though. Not by a long shot. The thing was, this guy was wearing a black hoodie.
A lot like the one Poe's kidnapper had been wearing.
Now, I'm fully aware that lots of people have black hoodies. Hell, my closet is full of them. But something about the pure hatred on this guys face as he ran towards me, told me that he probably knew Killian Mahoney personally.
All of these facts combined, pretty much translated to: Run.
And so I did. I spun around and leaped at the fence, trying to grab a hold of the chain links, but my Converse couldn't find anywhere to grip onto, and I slid back down. This caused me to lose a few precious seconds, which turned out to be all I'd had before the guy lunged at me. He grabbed me and shoved me back against the fence, pinning me there by my throat, his hands tight around my esophagus.
“Are you that Hartley bitch?” he snarled, his bared teeth inches away from my face.
“Uh.” I said, really wishing that I wasn't that “Hartley bitch” at that particular moment in time. In fact, I would've much rather been someone else at that point, like, oh, I don't know, pretty much anyone who wasn't currently on the verge of being strangled to death.
“Oh, Killian is just going to love this. You can join your little friend in the afterlife, too. How adorable.”
At first, I thought he meant Sammy. But that's when I realized that this guy knew nothing about me. He had no way of knowing about Sammy. The only friend of mine he knew was...
Poe.
Which meant that Poe was dead.
That's when I lost it. Clutching onto the chain link behind me for balance, I lifted my knee up as fast as I could, slamming it into his crotch. I expected the usual, y'know...the whole “fetal position and cry” thing that the guys I knew always did, but he didn't react. Like, at all.
I swear, he didn't even blink. And then, even weirder, he started to laugh. Either he was a total masochist, or he actually didn't have an genitals, just a smooth piece of plastic like Ken dolls have. Either way, I was screwed, because that was the only chance I had of getting away.
“Oh you're going to regret that.” he said, and then, because he was such a gentleman and all, he punched me in the face. Hard. To the point where I could feel the blood from my split lip sliding down my chin, some of it ending up in my mouth.
“Okay, wow. That was very rude.” I informed him, apparently catching him off guard if his confused facial expression was any indication. I guess he wasn't to used to his victims lecturing him on his manners when he was beating them to a pulp. But regardless, I used that few seconds where he'd let his guard down to push him to the side and sprint past him, headed for the mouth of the alley. I was a few steps away, when something wrapped around my ankle, sending me to the ground.
It was, of course, his hand. Great. Just awesome.
I tried to yank my leg away, but he just yanked back harder. I was on the verge of just laying down and letting him do whatever he came to do, when something crazy happened. One by one, the guy released his fingers from my ankle, until I was free. I crab walked backwards, totally confused as to his sudden change of heart, until I realized what was happening.
Slowly, each and every one of his fingers was being bent back until there was a terrible sound that was half popping and half snapping. The guy screamed, and the finger thing immediately stopped. He fell to the ground and looked up at me with disgust, but also a little bit of amazement.
“You're nothing but an ug-” the guy started, apparently going for verbal abuse on account of the fact that he was in too much pain from his broken fingers to really come after me physically. Before he'd even got the whole insult out of his mouth though, he was sailing headfirst into a wall. As he slumped down the ground unconsciously, I swear I saw a flash of blonde enter my peripheral vision.
This was only confirmed when, a few seconds later, Sammy's voice came from behind me, sounding just as real and comforting as it had when he was alive.
“I miss you.” he said simply, but with a hint of something more, an underlying tone of despair. It was heartbreaking, and in that instant, I wanted to hug him more than ever.
I whipped around, fully expecting to see him standing behind me, his blonde hair sticking up wildly in the back, wearing his favourite I <3 LONDON hoodie, just like he had been on the night he'd died.
But aside from the unconscious guy beside me, I was completely alone.
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YO. okay so I hope you all remember Miguel, he's the lead singer of Quinn's rival band that she met at the library and drove hom a few chapters ago. If you still dont remember, just let me know and I'll find out which chapter it was. But anyways, hop you all liked it, let me know :)