Page 95 of Dead Vengeance

Simon waves a hand in the air. “It’s all coming off a little… desperate.”

“Desperate?” Fabian snaps, twice as loud, anger fighting through shock.

“I just mean all this past-life stuff, dredging up my history…” Simon casts his gaze to the ground, adding a wrinkle of his lips. “It’s honestly quite… distasteful.”

Fabian only stares back, looking like he’s been stabbed, which he has, really, but figuratively this time.

Simon must be hit hard by that accusatory, hurt look, because he fumbles out, “You know, maybe we can take a little moment to get to know one another before you attempt suicide three times over me. I’m not suggesting I’m not flattered—”

“Flattered?” Fabian shouts. “Flattered? I’m not here to flatter you!”

“Well, then what are you here for?” Simon snipes. “It was a lovely roll in the hay, but truly, do you have nothing worth living for besides me?”

Fabian, face ashen with either blood loss or horror, or both, wobbles his lips for a few pregnant seconds before pressing them hard, then announces, “You know I don’t. No parents, no job, no life. Nothing! Nothing but you, this memory of you, the presence of you! Always and every day. And now I finally meet you and… and… You’re just like real men!”

Simon’s head tilts to the side in cruel judgement. “Darling, I hate to tell you this, but I am real men.”

“But… I knew you…” Fabian’s eyes brim over with tears, then he turns on his heel and staggers away from Simon towards the front of the house.

Simon leans towards me and, with an eye roll, bemoans, “Ghost fuckers. It’s a whole thing.”

“It’s a whole thing?” I repeat, voice thick and appalled.

“A whole thing. Don’t ask me to explain it.” He shakes his head. “It’s a shame too, because I really rather liked him. I felt an odd…” It’s like a wistfulness hits him for just a second, then he reverts back to distant. “It doesn’t matter. He’s madder than I thought possible, saying very strange things about me that…” His words and eyes drift away again, his brow pulling tight, presumably over whatever ‘strange things’ Fabian has been telling him.

The sound of Fabian’s sobs is so loud my heart goes out to him, as annoying as he is. “You could have let him down a bit more softly, you know? Go and apologise.”

“I thought you’d want me to stop him killing himself?” he protests.

“I do! I really do! Only, could you also just do it kindly?”

He lets out a huff, then disappears into thin air, only to reappear a few metres down the yard, smack bang in front of Fabian, who trips backwards on sight of him, falling on his behind.

Simon eases down next to him. “I didn’t say you had to leave.”

“Simon!” I hiss, stumbling after them.

“Well, which is it?” he yells over at me.

I smack my face into my palm. A bad idea because I’m still so dizzy, and I pay for it with the world spinning beneath my feet.

“Why don’t you see it?” Fabian asks, somewhat pathetically. Quite pathetically. “Why don’t you see what we are?”

“You don’t even know me.” And before Fabian can argue whatever he’s taken a breath to say, Simon surprises me by going in with, “But if you’d like to… pursue an… acquaintance…”

Fabian reaches out a hand for him, touching nothing but thin air. “How? How can a mortal man and a ghost ever have a real relationship?”

“That’s a different book,” I bark at them, truly over their ridiculous display at this point, and desperate to get back to my actual flesh and blood love interest. “I don’t care what you two do, just don’t kill yourself in my yard again. Is that clear? And you can go home right now too. Today. Before Liam sees you. We have enough to deal with, with that entity in the house, and I’d really like you to leave now.”

“But—” Fabian starts.

“Shhhh,” Simon whispers. “If we’re to be, fate shall find a way.”

“I don’t want to go,” Fabian whines, looking for all the world like a kitten about to be devoured by wolves.

“Home!” I snap. “Or I’ll send Simon straight back to the grave tonight.”

“He’s not serious,” Simon coos, which I don’t thank him for, but all the same, he encourages Fabian on his way. “Come back tomorrow and see me, alive and well, and… and maybe I’ll show you what I can do with my poltergeist skills.” There he raises his eyebrows, Fabian’s eyes triple in size, and I think I might lose my breakfast.