Perception

by Eliza Lainn

  She jumped up from the couch. "That is totally unfair! I want to see the ghosts. I want to have superpowers!"

  "No," I heard Oliver's voice float through the room, "she really doesn't."

  I looked over at Bronte. Her head still down. Curled into herself.

  Huffing, Rose spun to me. She had her finger out, pointed straight at me.

  I braced for a verbal lashing.

  That smolder was increasing, working itself up to an inferno. "This goes waaay beyond typical parapsychologist research. If what you're telling me is true, the two intelligent beings haunting this apartment are, in fact, aware of their deaths. And they're actually haunting an object rather than a place?"

  It was our turn to sit, staring, dumbfounded.

  Noah recovered first. "And the place. They can't leave..." his voice trailed off and I could practically see the realization that Cyril and Oliver had been outside of the apartment for a portion of the fight against Nathan Elgin.

  Rose waved a dismissive hand. That inferno, I realized, wasn't anger. But excitement. "More likely they're bound to remain close to their object and the confines of the apartment fit in loosely with how far they can move from that object—a pocket watch, right? But that's not even the best part, because your poltergeist manifestations are different from telekinesis. This could revolutionize previously accepted parapsychology. Poltergeists beyond telekinesis? Intelligent beings aware of death? And then another level of spiritual consciousness between ghosts and demons?"

  "Wait, back up," I said, finally finding my voice. "What is happening?"

  Rose rolled her eyes. She moved her hands to her hips. "Parapsychology."

  "Huh?"

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Unreal. Out of everyone in this room, the only—albeit amateur—but the only parapsychologist in this room is the only one unable to communicate with ghosts or manifest polter—no, wait, you were calling it psychic abilities."

  "Parapsychology?" Bronte whispered.

  "Ghost study," Noah answered, staring up at Rose with a dumb expression. "Where did this come from? You've never mentioned it before."

  Her face reddened. "Yes, well, it's not something I generally tend to share in the budding relationship phase."

  "Um, excuse me?" I said, holding up a hand. "We've known each other for years. Years, Rose. And you've never mentioned any of this before."

  She shrugged, her blush deepening, but didn't answer.

  Behind me, Cyril chuckled. "Never a dull moment in this home."

  "Hush," I snapped.

  Rose's eyes widened. She threw herself toward me. Shocked, I stepped back into Cyril, feeling the chill from where we contacted, the feel of his hands catching my arms to steady me. "One of them is here? Right now?"

  "Y-yes?"

  She straightened, her eyes swinging around the room. "Both of them?"

  "Don't you dare answer that," Oliver said, worry evident in his voice.

  "Yes?"

  She snapped her fingers again. "We need equipment. Can you believe it? We have an actual chance to record concrete data! Actual, verifiable data!"

  I swore, in another minute, she'd be bounding up and down in sheer joy.

  She whirled to Noah. "We need to go to my place."

  He frowned. "What? Why?"

  "I have some equipment. I don't know whether or not it'll work, but that's the beauty of it! Any one of you could verify if the equipment is producing actual results! Come on, let's go!" She had him by the arm and was hauling him up and off the couch.

  "I'll go too," Bronte said, sliding from the chair.

  "Wait, Stella, stop her," Oliver said as she moved toward the entrance.

  I shook my head slightly and he sighed.

  Rose rounded on me. "You stay here. We'll be right back!"

  She hooped her arm through Bronte's and half-dragged, half-skipped with her out the door.

  Noah held back, waiting for the door to shut behind them, before turning to me. "Thank you for not telling her that I left."

  I narrowed my eyes at him. "Believe me. I wanted to. It's Bronte that you should be thanking. She didn't want to have to make Rose pick between you and us—not since the threat was gone and it really didn't matter anymore, she said."

  He nodded vaguely, his eyes sliding to the door. "Is she going to be ok?"

  Oliver snorted someplace nearby.

  "You really don't have room to ask that," I snapped. "The minute you left, you lost any right to worry about what happened afterward."

  Anger flashed across his face. His eyes darted to something over my shoulder and he straightened, taking a step back. "Look, I wasn't being any help and you knew it. I thought, since it was after me, it might follow me or something."

  I couldn't tell if he was lying. The ghosts thought he was, from the sounds of their scoffing, but I—the ever gullible one—couldn't tell one way or the other.

  Not that it mattered. I was angry at him and that wasn't going to go away soon. "You left without a word. Just turned tail and ran."

  "And you ordered me," he snapped.

  I blinked, startled at the disgust in his tone. The chill at my shoulder grew stronger as Cyril moved closer.

  He looked up at me and shook his head, obviously repulsed at the thought. "You can label me a coward, call me out for trying to send the ghosts onward all you want. But you took away my free will, Stella. You commanded me to do things, knowing that I would have to obey, knowing I didn't want to do them. Yeah, you stayed. Yeah, you saved the day. But you ordered me to lower my ward when I didn't want to, and you ordered Nathan Elgin to stand still and silent as you burned him alive."

  "I was saving our lives," I snapped.

  "Yeah? Well, that was my argument too, remember?"

  Rose's voice floated up from outside. "Noah? Hurry up!"

  He shook his head, and without a word, left.

  "Prick," Oliver mumbled.

  A knock came from the front door.

  Rolling my eyes, I stormed over to it. "Forget something, pri—oh."

  One of the leasing agents from the complex stood on the other side. He was dressed casually in skinny jeans and smidgen-too-tight button up shirt. Where he had his sleeves rolled up, tattoos poked through on his skin. And his beard reached down to the second from the bottom button on his shirt.

  Cyril hovered behind me. "Good Lord, what is wrong with men these days?"

  Not for the first time, I wondered what Cyril, and Oliver, looked like.

  "Here," the agent said, handing me an envelope. Then he retreated before I could ask him what it was about.

  Shutting the door, I tore into the envelope and pulled out the letter.

  Oliver's voice came from nearby. "What is it?"

  "A letter from the apartment administrators," Cyril said, reading over my shoulder, a pleasant chill blossoming on my arm. He chuckled as he continued reading. "Letting them know that an official noise complaint has been lodged against them and to please refrain from such loud escapades in the future."

  I crumpled the paper into a ball. "Seriously? We beat an evil serial killer ghost and we get chastised for it?"

  "If you wanted to take the pocket watch into the lobby, Oliver and I could possess their computers and exact revenge?" Cyril offered.

  Smiling, I took the wadded up letter into the kitchen and dropped it into the trashcan. "No thank you. You two up for whatever Rose has in store when she comes back with her equipment?"

  They both chuckled. "Maybe we should put on a show for her?" Oliver suggested.

  "Like what?" I asked.

  Cyril grumbled under his breath, his voice still close. "We could throw Noah through the window."

  I laughed, then smiled as Cyril's baritone voice and Oliver's silvery tones joined in.

  ***

  To be continued in Inception, Book 2 of Apparition Investigations.

  Coming Soon.

  ***

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  About the Author

  Eliza Lainn isn’t a USA Today bestselling author of paranormal fiction. She doesn’t have numerous awards, hasn’t won outstanding achievements–unless you count a Character Counts award back in the 5th grade–and can’t really name anywhere she’s been chosen as the best of something.

  But she’s trying.

  So if you’re interested in watching either A) someone crash and burn spectacularly or B) skyrocket to authorial success, then stick around. Because one of those two is bound to happen eventually. And won’t it be fun to see which it is?