“Good night,” Wren whispered.

I sighed. She was almost impossible to stay annoyed at. “Night.”

I rolled onto my side. It was a warm night, but the breeze through my window was just cool enough. I didn’t expect to fall asleep as fast as I did. As much as I needed rest, I didn’t enjoy sleeping. Sleeping brought dreams with it, and my dreams could get freaky.

But that night my dreams weren’t freaky. I would have welcomed freaky. Instead I dreamed that I was the ghost and Wren was real.

Everyone seemed much happier with that situation— including Wren.

Including me.

WREN

I didn’t read, even though I should have. I didn’t stay in the house, even though I should have. I should have spent my time trying to figure out a way to keep myself from hurting my sister and new friends, but I didn’t do that, either.

Instead, I went to Kevin. I could lie and say I went to him hoping he had answers, but I’d rather not say anything at all. I didn’t see the point in lying when you can just stay quiet.

If there was one thing I could say was my favorite part of being a ghost, it was just how easy it was for me to get around. Lark had to walk or drive, but all I had to do was think about where I wanted to be and I could go there. Lots of ghosts were bound to one or a few locations, but I was different. A lot of us who died as babies are this way—we have nothing to bind us, nothing that we hold on to or let hold on to us. All I had was Lark, and she didn’t need me to be glued to her side, so I wasn’t. If she knew she had the power to bind me she’d use it, so I didn’t think anyone would blame me for not sharing that information with her.

Well, except for Lark, of course.

I understood her concern—what happened at Bell Hill with those ghosts hadn’t been fun. But did I stop her from doing what she thought she needed to do? No. She needed to stop being so overprotective and treating me like I was fragile. In case she hadn’t noticed, I was the one who was the supernatural creature out of the two of us. I was stronger than she gave me credit for.

The ghosts at Bell Hill hadn’t been able to make me like them, even though they’d tempted me. It felt really good to give in to that darkness, but not good enough. My bond with Lark saved me then, and it would be strong enough to save me again—not that I’d need it. I was stronger now—I’d made sure of it.

Kevin was in bed when I arrived. I thought he might be asleep, but he was reading. Propped up against a mountain of soft pillows in a T-shirt and sweatpants, he repeatedly bent the toes on his left foot, cracking them in an almost steady rhythm.

“You shouldn’t do that,” I said.

He looked up from his book, frowning. He looked very edgy and dangerous when he frowned, and I liked it. This was an odd reaction, I thought, but I seemed to like everything about him, so his frown might as well be added to the list.

“Wren?” He glanced around, as though expecting to see someone else. “What are you doing here?”

I hadn’t thought that maybe he wouldn’t be as happy to see me as I was to see him. Why would he be? He had friends and a life. And it wasn’t like he could see me. There’d been that brief moment earlier, but that was it. Maybe he thought I was a complete lunatic after that.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re busy. I’ll go.”

“No!” He jumped off the bed. “I’m not busy. You don’t have to go. Stay. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Sorry about earlier. I lost control.”

He shrugged, smiling a little at a point just over my left shoulder. He couldn’t see me. Something inside me sank. “It was just a lightbulb. Besides, it was pretty cool after it stopped being scary.”

I moved closer to him. “Cool? Really? I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see me anymore.”

“Are you kidding? Of course not. It was actually kinda hot.”

I’d long ago stopped wondering at the language of the living. Temperature wasn’t something that had a large impact on my existence, but I’d never figured out how it was possible for something to be both hot and cool, even though I’d heard Lark use these same terms as though they were interchangeable. What I did know, however, was that hot was very often used to describe something as sexy. I didn’t mind that.

“Did I look awful?” It was a vain question, but I had to know.

“You were gorgeous,” he blurted. “You are gorgeous.”

“Oh.” There was a fluttering in my stomach. I still felt these things even though I technically had no form in the human realm.

“Is that okay?” he asked. He looked worried.

I giggled. Lark would be so disgusted with me being so stereotypically girlie. “It’s more than okay.”

He grinned. I grinned. “I wish I could see you now,” he said.

I reached out for him, settling my hand on his arm. We’d worked on this the past couple of times I’d seen him—which hadn’t been as frequent as I would have liked. “You can,” I told him. “You just have to look.”

The contact helped. I had to focus all my energy on the point where our skin met, but it was enough. I felt myself shiver through the veil, energy taking form. I knew it was working when Kevin gasped.

Our eyes met. I smiled at the wonder in his wide gaze. That was worth the tension pressing down on me—the struggle it took just to make myself visible to him. “Hi.”