Page 49 of All Her Ghosts

Suddenly, awash with a terrible understanding, the world cracks under my feet. She wasn’t just tracking ghosts—she was keeping watch for swarms.

“Because of me,” I breathe. “I’m the fan.”

His mouth a grim line, Cain nods. My stomach plummets. I spin, hoping I’ll find Bas grinning, ready to tell me this is all a horrible joke, but he only stares at me, soft and sad.

“Weare the fan,” he says. “Us, together.”

The ocean roars in my chest.

“This isn’t new,” I realize. “The ghosts have always watched me. I’ve noticed it for years. They can see me. They—the ones in the school, they said they were searching for me.”

“Well, yeah,” Bas agrees quietly. I barely hear him, every terrible realization in my head howling all at once, thoughts wheeling.

“Have they always been following me? Is that why Mom keeps uprooting us? She has computers in her basement, Bas, a whole wall of them tracking ghost activity. That’s what I found, what I needed to tell you about before the swarm hit. She has a ghost-proof safe room—traps, even. To keep out things like—”

Me.

I choke on the word, swallow it back. Desperate, I lean forward, glancing between them, seeking out their eyes in the uneasy dark of the RV. “All this time, Mom’s six hundred new jobs, have we always just been running from ghosts?”

But Bas—

Bas stares at the floor. His face clouds. His hand, half reaching for me, falls in the gap between the seats.

“Bas,” I breathe, but he won’t look at me.

Cain flicks his eyes to him in the rearview mirror. When Bas doesn’t say anything, he answers me instead.

“And us,” he says. “The ghosts follow you. We follow the ghosts.”

My fingers flicker, party-trick threatening. I dig my fists into my thighs so hard I’ll have bruises tomorrow.

The ghosts followme.

That’s why Mom rebuilds her lab in every basement, all that specialized government equipment, tracking ghost activity in real time. It’sto know when the ghosts sense me nearby, when they start to follow, when they get too close.

It’s to know when we need to run.

All those houses, all those schools, every move predicated by some small little inconvenience. Too many spirits on the sidewalk outside our house. A ghost day off from school. Birds caught in the EM current. A week of my mom picking fights in the rare moments she notices me at all until—

“That’s why the RV,” I realize, a horrified anger twisting in my gut. “Why Mom always forces me on some random road trip before we move. I’m bait. She’s luring the ghosts away from our next house. Luringyouaway. Because when you get too close—when it’s us, together, youhunting me—that’swhat causes the ghosts to swarm in huge numbers like this?” I spin, glaring between the seats. Bas’s eyes snap to mine and dart away. Lightning strikes the ocean in my chest. The storm breaks. “Youdid this? It’s all because of you? You’re the reason we’ve been running? Why I can’t stay in the same house for a whole school year? Why I never have any friends?”

That forces his head up, finally.

“You haveme,” he snaps, defensive.

“Since yesterday, Bas!” My fist slams into the door, an unsatisfying strike muted by the mauve shag carpet. “Do you think twenty-four hours makes up for a whole fuckinglifetime? Mom always hiding in the basement or at work, constantly moving, the weird new girl in every school? Oh, and just so you know, there were a metric fuck ton of those.” I can’t breathe, the pressure in my chest rising and a storm threatening overhead, my seams straining, my soul sizzling against the metal door handle.

“I have been alone my entire life,” I say through my teeth, the words trembling shamefully close to tears. “I never had anybody but myself. So tell me what wasworthall that—tell mewhy.”

Finally,finally, Bas meets my eyes.

“Youwere,” he whispers. “I was looking for you.”

The pain in his voice catches me sideways. He stares at me, hard and haunted, his arms folded tight across his chest. Caught between his hurt and my fury, tears bloom in my eyes. I can’t face it. I turn away, curling in my seat, hiding my sudden weakness behind my hoodie sleeve.

“Cut him a break,” Cain says. “He can’t help what he is. It’s your mother’s fault, not his.”

But easing up to a stop sign, his shoulders go stiff. Catching his tension from the corner of my eye, I jerk my head up, following his gaze down the main road we’re waiting to turn onto. Another black SUV barrels past. This time, in the weak flare of our headlights, I catch the inverted caduceus on its side, the copperplate of its insignia.