Page 19 of Ghost Hunted

“Please…” she whispers. “Please don’t come closer, or I’ll jump.”

I stare at her. She’s beautiful, like a photograph, frozen in time. So beautiful, with her red hair blowing in the wind, that I could almost forgive her.

Almost.

“You can jump if you want,” I say quietly. “You’re going to die anyway.”

She shakes her head. “That’s what you used to say too. But you never did kill me. You don’t have it in you to do that, do you, Logan?”

I take another step forward, and she gasps, taking a step back. There aren’t many more steps she can take before she falls.

“I think you know exactly what I can do,” I growl. “I should have done it then. Before the gangrene set in. I should have stopped the damage at twenty-seven broken bones.”

“Please, Logan… stop!”

I’ve just taken a few more steps forward.

“You’re a little coward, aren’t you? You’re not going to jump. You should, but you won’t. You’re a real fucking coward. You’re going to force me to do it myself.”

“Please, Logan… please. I don’t want to die.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I hiss. “You’re already dead. You died a long time ago.”

She’s at the very edge of the cliff now. A single step, and she’d fall. I close the distance between us, but she doesn’t move. I knew she wouldn’t. I know everything about her.

A heartless, cowardly snake. That’s what she is. An illusion. No: a reflection. Maybe she never was more than that—the superficial reflection of my own devotion.

I press my gun to her temple, and she falls to her knees.

“I don’t want to die, Logan…”

“I once thought, for all your faults, that you were a good mother. But you’re not even that, are you? You didn’t just abandon me. You abandoned your daughter too.”

“Logan…” She crouches down, trying to press her face to my shoes. Just like she did that one time I learned of her rape.

Back then, I’d pulled her back up and comforted her. Now, though, I withdraw my foot.

“Don’t touch me, scum. Don’t fucking touch my shoe. You’d dirty it.” I let out a strangled breath. “I fucking visited your grave every day. Every single fucking day.” I watch as she remains on the ground, in a pathetic kneeling position. “What are you doing right now? Are you trying to apologize to me? Is that what this is? Don’t make me laugh. Nothing could make me forgive you. Besides, you don’t really want to apologize, you just want to live. But scum like you doesn’t deserve to live.”

“I do… want to… apologize…” She forces out the words, and I’m thankful she’s facing the ground so I can’t see the tears I hear in her voice.

“Yeah? Well, you can do that by eating the trash I should have let Damien force-feed you back in high school. No—there’s no trash here, only dirt. Dirt’s too good for you. But that’s all there is. So fucking eat it.”

Her tongue slips out from between her parted lips, and she slowly, very slowly, licks the ground.

Fuck, that feels good. It takes the edge off of my overwhelming fury. I just have time to wonder if, maybe, I could keep her alive after all, just so I can force her to eat shit every day, when she rises back up on her knees, makes a small movement backward and… lets herself fall.

5

Logan

“Fuck!”

Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve let go of my gun, and I’m toppling over the cliff after her. I feel the cloth of her dress first, and then her arm, her fingers… pure panic seizes me as she escapes from my grasp, inch by inch. Until I reach her hair, and manage to latch onto it, while my other hand and arm get skinned by the cliff. My bloodied, bruised fingers lodge themselves just in time into a recess on the side of the rocky surface. I can feel some of her hair rip out from her skull, and she screams, but the rest holds tight, and I twist it around my knuckles.

Okay. Now what?

I’m dangling off the side of a cliff, holding a girl by her hair. I know without looking just how high we are. If she falls, her body will be dashed against the rocks below. And so will mine—because I’ve suddenly realized I can’t let her go.