Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story

by Ally Blue

  The time passed quickly. Adrian was drifting in a pleasant doze, trying to remember why the bit of square jaw in Lyndon’s memory seemed familiar to him, when something nudged his ribs. He cracked his eyelids open and squinted up at the person-shaped shadow looming over him. “Hi, Greg.”

  “Hey.” Dropping onto the grass, Greg tucked both legs beneath him. He grinned. “So. What’s up? You taking a nap?”

  “Nope. Just thinking.”

  “I see. The college intellectual ponders the mysteries of life while lounging in a graveyard.” Greg nodded, his expression dead serious.

  Adrian laughed. “Something like that.” He sat up, leaned forward and kissed Greg’s lips. “I went back to Groome Castle today to talk to Lyndon. I think I made a real breakthrough this time. I’m pretty sure I experienced the moment of his death. I even saw a part of his killer’s face. A few more visits, and I think I could actually see enough to be able to identify the person who killed him.”

  The smile froze to Greg’s face. “Oh, really? That’s great.”

  Greg’s expression spoke the exact opposite of his words. Adrian’s excitement shriveled. He forced himself to speak calmly instead of letting his disappointment turn him waspish.

  “Greg, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, honestly. But I don’t want you to lie to me either.” Taking Greg’s hand, Adrian wove their fingers together. “You obviously don’t think what I just said is great. Something about it bothers you. Please tell me what it is.”

  Greg’s shoulders slumped. He fixed Adrian with a guilty look. “I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just that all this stuff about talking to ghosts and experiencing somebody else’s death…” He shook his head. “It sounds crazy, Adrian. You have to know it does.”

  That hurt, even though Adrian knew Greg didn’t mean it like it sounded. “That’s why I don’t usually tell people. They tend to think I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think that.” Greg’s eyes searched Adrian’s face. “I know you’re not crazy. In fact, you might be the sanest person I’ve ever met. Which just makes it harder to understand when you start telling me about how you’ve been talking to a ghost and experiencing his death. It’s just…disturbing.”

  Adrian stared at his and Greg’s entwined hands, his mind racing. When they’d first started seeing each other, revealing the secret of his psychokinesis to Greg hadn’t really been something he’d considered. After all, no one but his family and the BCPI team knew. The few friends he’d made in school had never known. He’d never even told Christian. As far as Adrian was concerned, no one would ever need to know except a long-term partner, and since he’d never expected to have one, he’d been content to leave his secret where it was.

  No, he’d had no firm plans to tell Greg, in spite of the vague guilt that prodded him now and then. Yet here he was, at the point where he knew he had to do what he’d never done in his life—tell another human being his entire, unvarnished history, including the truth about his psychokinetic abilities.

  The idea terrified him. He swallowed, his throat dry as dust.

  Gathering all his courage, he lifted his gaze to meet Greg’s. “I think it’s time I told you a few things about myself, and my past. So that you’ll understand why I can talk to spirits and maybe understand me a little better too.”

  Apprehension crept into Greg’s eyes. “What’re you talking about? What kinds of things?”

  “That’s kind of hard to explain without really getting into it.” Adrian took a good look around. The sidewalk beside South Road, on the far side of the cemetery, was as crowded as ever with people passing back and forth. The one running not fifteen feet from where he and Greg sat wasn’t nearly as busy. A girl in green and black striped leggings loped down the pathway through the graveyard. Other than her, Greg and Adrian, the cemetery was empty. “We can talk here if you want, or go back to my place.”

  Greg shrugged. “Here’s fine with me, if it’s okay with you. You’re the one who’s going to be talking about private stuff.”

  “All right, we’ll talk here.” Adrian drew a shaky breath. “I’m really nervous about this. I’ve never told anyone else what I’m about to tell you.”

  Greg shifted his position. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Adrian, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. There’s no rule that says people have to know every single thing about each other just because they’re in a relationship.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve thought about it, and I really think I should tell you this.” He smiled, trying to look as though his heart wasn’t trying to hammer its way through his sternum. “I want to tell you.”

  For a second, the indefinable something Adrian had been glimpsing since Christmas glinted in Greg’s eyes, then vanished before Adrian could pin it down. Greg rubbed his thumb over the back of Adrian’s hand. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “When I was ten,” Adrian began, “Sam came to work for my dad’s paranormal investigations company. Not long after that, my parents separated and Dad moved out. A few months later, when I was eleven, Mom and Dad divorced, and I found out my father was gay and in love with Sam. The two of them moved in together around the same time my parents got divorced.”

  “Wow.” Scooting closer, Greg rested his free hand on Adrian’s knee. “That must’ve been tough for you and your brother to deal with when you were so young.”

  “Sean rolled with it like he does with everything.” One corner of Adrian’s mouth curled upward. “You know me, though. You won’t be surprised to hear that I didn’t handle it so well.”

  Greg didn’t laugh, or even smile. “You were only eleven. Just a kid.” He lifted Adrian’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “What happened?”

  This is it. Adrian took a moment to center himself and calm his racing pulse while he thought of the quickest, easiest way to say what he needed to say.

  The straight truth won. “Strange things started happening to me. If I got angry, objects around me would move by themselves, or even break. In my room at my mom’s house, I would sometimes see…things. Very weird, frightening things. Things that didn’t belong there.”

  Greg’s brows drew together. “Adrian—”

  “No, wait. I know it sounds weird, just…let me finish. Let me tell you the whole thing before I lose my nerve.”

  Something uncomfortably close to pity softened Greg’s expression. “All right. Go on.”

  Adrian squeezed Greg’s hand to convey his thanks. “My mom didn’t believe me when I told her what I was seeing. She blamed my dad and Sam because of all the stress of the divorce and Dad being gay and all. At first, I thought she was right, that I was imagining all of it. I thought I was going crazy.”

  “God, Adrian.” Greg’s hand tightened on Adrian’s knee.

  Afraid that if he stopped he’d never again have the nerve to finish his story, Adrian plowed on. “Then something happened when my dad and Sam were there. I had gotten in trouble at school, and my dad was trying to talk to me about it. I was furious, and a bulb in the overhead light just broke. That’s when Dad and Sam figured out that I had developed psychokinesis, which is the ability to make things move with your mind. Sam has the same ability. I wasn’t able to control it, and to make a really long story short enough to tell in an afternoon, I ended up accidentally opening a portal into another dimension in my mother’s house the night before Thanksgiving, two thousand and five, when I was eleven. Something came through. It almost killed my whole family before Sam helped me send the thing back where it came from and close the portal.” Adrian let out a short bark of a laugh. “Wow. It feels so strange to say that out loud. It sounds so surreal.”

  Through this speech, Greg had remained still and silent. He twisted his hand free from Adrian’s grip and stood. “Okay. Well, that was some story. Why don’t you call me when you’re ready to stop jerking me around, huh?” Spinning on his heel, he strode off toward the path leading through the cemetery toward South Road.

  Shocked,
Adrian scrambled to his feet, lunged after Greg and caught his arm. “Greg, I’m telling the truth. I know it all sounds strange, but I swear it’s all true.” He grasped Greg’s shoulders when he broke away and spun him around to stare hard into his eyes. “You have to believe me. Please.”

  Greg shook off Adrian’s grip and backed up. His eyes glittered with a painful war between the desire to believe Adrian and the obvious fear of being the butt of a joke. “I thought you were going to tell me you’d had some kind of psychotic break, or…or something. Something real. And…and then you tell me this shit?” He shook his head. “Fuck you.”

  Adrian hadn’t known mere words could hurt so much. He’d laid himself bare for Greg, told him things no one else knew, and Greg had done the verbal equivalent of cutting out Adrian’s heart with a dull razor.

  Mortification and anger twisted into a burning knot in Adrian’s belly. He felt his heart rate increase, his breath coming faster. Electricity sizzled over his skin, and he knew his control was slipping.

  For once, he didn’t care. If Greg refused to believe the truth in words, maybe he’d believe his own eyes.

  “I don’t lie,” Adrian growled, eyes narrowed. “Hold still.”

  “What the f—” Greg’s words cut off with a sharp hiss of in-taken breath as the zipper on his jacket undid itself.

  Gathering every ounce of his concentration, Adrian used his psychokinesis to yank Greg’s jacket down to his elbows and hold it there. He tugged on the jacket arms, forcing Greg’s hands to crisscross over the front of his body and plant themselves on the opposite hip. A thought tightened the leather until it dug into Greg’s flesh.

  Greg let out a tiny, distressed sound. “Adrian. Stop.”

  Adrian couldn’t help the surge of triumph he felt. “Do you believe me now?”

  “Yes.” Greg licked his lips. “S-stop. Please. It hurts.”

  Fear threaded through Greg’s voice. Adrian took one look at Greg’s dead white face, and the enormity of what he’d just done hit him like a concrete block to the head.

  Adrian dropped his psychokinetic control of the jacket. Greg’s arms flopped to his sides. The jacket slithered downward. The arms turned inside out, the cuffs catching on Greg’s wrists. Greg stood still, staring at a spot somewhere over Adrian’s left shoulder.

  “Greg? Are you okay?” Closing the distance between them, Adrian reached out to touch Greg’s cheek. Greg flinched away, and Adrian’s stomach rolled over. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Greg’s gaze focused on Adrian’s face, and the sheen of fear in those gray eyes tore at Adrian’s heart. “Harrison never did either.”

  Oh, God. Adrian rubbed both hands over his face. He supposed it had been selfish of him to hope Greg wouldn’t make that connection. “I’m so sorry,” Adrian repeated, his voice cracking. “I just…just wanted you to believe me. That’s all. I have excellent control over my…my abilities. It’ll never happen again, I promise.”

  “You’re right, it won’t.” Greg shrugged his jacket back on. His hands shook. “Goodbye. Don’t call me.”

  Adrian stared, stunned into silence, as Greg turned on his heel and started walking. It wasn’t until Greg stepped onto the path toward South Road that Adrian realized Greg was leaving him. Leaving him. Maybe for good.

  Panic spurred Adrian into action. He ran after Greg. “Wait!”

  Greg didn’t even slow his pace. “Go away, Adrian.”

  “But if you’d just listen for a minute.” Adrian stretched out his arm and brushed his fingers over Greg’s shoulder.

  Greg shook off Adrian’s hand, whirled around and pinned Adrian with a furious glare. “Don’t you fucking touch me. Don’t talk to me, just…” Tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks. He dashed them away with a couple of sharp, angry movements, then turned his back to Adrian. “Just leave me alone.”

  Watching Greg walk away and not stopping him was the hardest thing Adrian had ever done, but he clenched his hands at his sides and forced himself to do it. With every step Greg took, Adrian’s heart squeezed harder, faster. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. The rush of blood in his skull drowned out the noise of the traffic on South Road and the sigh of the wind through the branches overhead.

  When Greg turned the corner onto the South Road sidewalk without a single glance in Adrian’s direction and strode out of sight, the shields keeping Adrian’s psychokinesis reined in shivered under a wave of despair like he hadn’t felt in more than a decade.

  Adrian spun and started running. He didn’t think about his destination, just let instinct drive him forward. His vision blurred, his feet faltered, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but reaching the one place he knew he would be safe.

  The “walk” signal went off before he got to the crosswalk on the far side of the theater. He darted through the intersection anyway. A powerful blast of mental energy slowed the traffic barreling from either direction enough to keep him from being crushed. He reached the opposite sidewalk with the blare of horns cutting through the static in his ears. His shoulder collided with a broad, suit-clad chest. He swerved sideways and stumbled down the tree-lined street, chased by the faint buzz of the man’s curses.

  As Adrian approached, Groome Castle’s front door unlocked itself and swung open so hard it hit the wall with a bang. Adrian bolted through the foyer and toward the tower room stairs without slowing down. The door slammed shut behind him.

  He hit the steps at a dead run, took them two at a time, flung open the door at the top with a twist of his mind and skidded to a halt in the middle of the room, panting. “Lyndon? God, please be here. I need you.”

  A swirl of dust turned in the sunbeam pouring through the southernmost window. The silence felt barren.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Adrian dropped his mental shields, leaving his psyche naked to whatever forces the castle contained. A vague sense of sorrow lapped at his mind like cold, dark water. It seemed to emanate from the stone all around, as if the castle itself had absorbed the emotions experienced here.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, Adrian would’ve found the phenomenon fascinating. Now, he didn’t care. He needed the only being in the entire universe who knew what he was capable of and not only wouldn’t judge him for it, but couldn’t be injured by whatever his uncontrolled psychokinesis might do.

  Adrian let his senses expand the way Sam had taught him all those years ago. Electricity crackled through the air. His hair swirled around his head. At the edges of consciousness, a dim, scattered spark pulsed. Lyndon, Adrian realized after a moment’s hard concentration. Communicating with Adrian earlier must have rendered him unable to manifest physically, this soon at least. Adrian had no idea how long it would be, but at the moment it didn’t matter. He needed Lyndon now, not later.

  All this time, he’d been helping Lyndon. Doing his best to find out what had happened to him, so that he could locate Lyndon’s body and lay him to rest, allowing his spirit to move on. In fact, Adrian’s work with Lyndon had been a major factor in Greg leaving him.

  The resentment simmering in Adrian’s gut exploded into blind fury. Opening his eyes, he threw his head back and screamed at the ceiling. “You fucker! You should be here for me!” The light bulb in the old-fashioned fixture overhead shattered. Instead of falling to the floor, the glass shards surrounded Adrian in a glittering whirlwind. “He left me, Lyndon! Greg fucking left me. Because of you. Because of this.”

  Because of you, Adrian. Because you couldn’t control your anger. It’s always been about that, hasn’t it? Your family almost died ten years ago because you couldn’t control your anger. And now you drove away the first man you ever loved because you couldn’t control it. You have no one to blame but yourself, and you know it.

  Adrian stood stock-still, staring wide-eyed out the window at a crooked branch as the realization of what he truly felt sank in.

  He wondered if it would’ve made any difference if he’d figured it out earlier.

 
; The urge to bare his throat to the blur of glass tempted him so strongly he took a step forward, neck arched, before forcing himself to stop. He sent the tiny fragments raining to the floor before he could act on his impulse.

  For reasons he couldn’t fathom, the tinkle of glass on stone broke something inside him. He sank to the floor, curled his body forward and buried both hands in his hair. How the hell had it come to this? He’d been doing so well in school, with his investigation here at Groome Castle and with Greg. He’d been happy. And now that happiness was gone, all gone, because he’d forgotten the principles he’d sworn years ago to live by.

  Truth. Control. Always. No exceptions.

  Adrian drew a deep, shuddering breath. Drawing his knees up, he rested his forehead against them. He’d never felt more alone in his life. The worst of it was, he didn’t know if it would’ve helped anything if he’d realized before now that he was in love with Greg, or if telling him would’ve just driven him away earlier.

  Tears stung Adrian’s eyes. This time, he didn’t try to stop them. He covered his face with his hands and cried.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Adrian woke in the dark with his cheek pressed to cold stone. The left side of his body was numb where he’d curled up on the floor of the tower room.

  He pushed to his feet, wincing as a thousand aches and pains born of sleeping on the rocky floor flared to life. A look at the fluorescent hands of his watch told him it was just after one in the morning. He felt weak and wrung out, and his head throbbed, but his mind was clear and uncluttered. An emotional breakdown followed by eight plus hours of sleep—even if it was on the floor of a cold castle room—would do that.