Page 37 of All Her Ghosts

And he’s not tall—he’s exactly the same height as me—but somehow Bas stands taller in that moment, like the enormity of him could fill the hallway. He seems brighter, more saturate than everyone else, lit from within like a spotlight.

Grimacing, the cop steps forward.

“Ma’am, I understand tensions are high, but I’ll have to ask you to keep your hands to yourself.”

Behind us, a new voice snaps, “Touch my kid again and you won’t enjoy the consequences.”

Startled, I whip around. I hadn’t even heard a single footstep, but suddenly there’s the man from yesterday morning, crossing the hall to stand at Bas’s side, arms folded and every line of his stance an openthreat. Eyes locked on my mom, on the cop, on his exits, Bas doesn’t even flinch. He barely glances at the newcomer, like he knew he’d be there—even when obviously, by the cop’s stressed muttering into his radio about abreached cordon, he’s not supposed to be.

“Kid?” Mom sneers. Her hand lashes out, gripping my arm, but her attention locks on the man, her face barely an inch from his. “Is that what we’re calling it? Well, you better pull yourkidfrom this school because I swear to god, Cain, if he so much as looks at my daughter again, we will see just how much your ‘parenting’ holds up under scrutiny.”

Her threat bares its teeth in the unspoken undercurrent, but Bas’s dad shrugs, unbothered.

“Your desk jockey friends don’t scare me. Especially not when our skeletons are in the same closet.” His lips curl, the lighthouse of his attention passing over me. Low and cutting, he says, “Yourdaughter, Chloe?”

That voice—This is somePet Sematarybullshit, Chloe. That is not your daughter—and my blood runs cold.

I wasn’t dreaming. IknowI wasn’t dreaming. I would never have cast a blink-and-forget-him stranger in my nightmare. I wouldn’t have remembered his voice well enough to re-create it, angry andafraid.

“Sir, young man,” the cop tries, “if you could both step away from the girl, please.”

No one listens.

“How dare you?” Mom says. “Sheismy daughter.”

My head whips around. I scour her face, searching for the lie in her eyes. With sinking horror, I know I’ll find it. That’s not the right emphasis, not for the argument we’re having. That’s a different answer—an answer to an older question.

The answer to the accusation in my memory.

“Everybody,step back,” the cop bellows.

My patience breaks. No,no—I refuse. I won’t be a helpless passenger to this, not anymore. It’s my turn to drive, my turn to pick the tune. And if they won’t give me the wheel, I’ll fuckingsteal it.

Ripping my arm out of my mom’s grip, I grab Bas, drag him back, away from everything.

“What right do you have to ask anything from him?” I demand, teeth bared and snarling at the cop. “He doesn’t have to move for you—and don’t youdarepretend it’s for my sake. I can speak for myself. Oh, but he had to makesureof that, didn’t he? Since you all wanted to carry me off when I couldn’t say anything against it.”

The cop holds up his hands. “Standard procedure—”

“Screw your standard procedure. I don’t care. I’m done being dragged around, treated like baggage—like a procedure. I’m a person!” I yell, pounding a fist against my hollow chest, roaring with a distant ocean, rising in a storm. “I’mmy ownperson. You can’t just—just force me into being something—”Smaller, a voice intones from the back of my mind.Something less than what I am.

The thought derails me, scares me with its wild strangeness, its barely contained rage.

“More convenient,” I croak, my throat closing on the words. I ball my fists, swallowing hard. I don’t know who I’m about to fight, but God knows I’m about to throw down with somebody. Hell, maybe everybody.

My mom steps up to be first in line, turning her glower back on me. “That’s enough. We are going home.”

I don’t move. I stare at her, every muscle in my body burning, and she looks like a stranger to me. She looks like a prison warden staring into a locked cell and I’m small again andtrapped trapped trapped, drained of language and sense. But I don’t feel scared anymore. I feel cold and calm, ascertainas I did when I reached out to let’s-call-it-seven ghosts and held their crying faces in my hands.

It should have killed me.

It should have killed me, but my mother isn’t evenworried.

She knows something.

“Why should I go anywhere with you?” I demand, every word an accusation, a tomb door falling open. “I didn’t want to be here. I don’tbelonghere. Youdidthis.”

Mom clenches her jaw, but not tight enough to hide her shock. Her eyes flare wide. She steps back without meaning to, catches herself, hands spasming at her sides.