Chapter 49

KATHERINE.

A fight… that’s what went on.

We hadn’t seen it since the boys had gone into a room but we’d heard it and it had sounded nasty. Thankfully, it only lasted for a couple of seconds because Lenore immediately went in to stop them when yelling and the sound of objects breaking filled the air, and that had all taken place twenty minutes ago. The four of them still hadn’t come out.

“Are you gonna go check on them?” I asked Josie and she drew her brows together like she couldn’t believe I just asked her to do that.

The club meeting had just ended. Keith took over since the presidents were doing God knows what in the storage room after the fight ended.

“No,” she replied. “The last time I tried to separate Theo and Blake while they were fighting, I got a fist to the face. It still hurts whenever I think about it.”

‘Ah.’

“They’re no longer fighting though.”

“Yeah, but the energy in the room will be insanely bad. I don’t want to deal with that. Don’t worry about them, they’ll be out soon.”

I hmmed and glanced at the storage room door over my shoulder. After moments passed with no one walking out of it, I heaved a sigh and returned my attention to the front. Then I frowned.

The absorber Keith had brought back was on the table Josie and I were sitting in front of – Keith had asked us to keep an eye on it while he went to grab something upstairs – and the markings and patterns on it glowed with a blue hue, indicating the presence of a ghost inside.

“Should we release her?” Josie asked, referring to the ghost, and my brows snapped together.

“Fuck no.”

As she let out a laugh at my reaction, Zac walked up to the table and she muttered an ‘ugh’, drawing a frown from him before he asked, “Where’s Jackson?”

“Do I look like his keeper?”

“You don’t have to be rude,” he replied before turning to face me, raising his brows to silently ask if I knew the answer to his question, and I shrugged. He then glanced around before heading for the stairs and moments later, the door to the storage room opened and I immediately glanced at it just as Lenore walked out with Theo.

He didn’t look like he’d been in a fight. I mean, his clothes looked rougher than they did before he walked into the storage room, but that was it. There were no bruises on his face or knuckles. I couldn’t say that he definitely hadn’t been in a fight though because I didn’t know how fast he healed. I hadn’t been able to shift yet so for me, it took between five to seven minutes for a paper cut to heal.

I didn’t know if Theo could shift yet but I suspected his healing rate was faster than mine and they had been in there for twenty minutes so…

“I’ll see you on Monday,” Lenore said to him and he nodded just as Keith came back down. Then Josie and I got to our feet and the three of us left the clubhouse.

The sun was setting so the sky had turned into shades of oranges and pink, and we were making our way over to the dining hall. Lenore had been lost in thought since when we left the clubhouse and Josie and I were walking a couple of feet ahead of her.

I was a bit disappointed though because I hadn’t gotten to talk to either Hunter or Blake after the meeting. ‘I can text Hunter though, but Blake…’ I let out a harsh breath.

“Josie, can you shift?” I asked when we were halfway to the dining hall. Thinking about healing rates back there made me realize I hadn’t asked my friends if they could shift.

“Yeah. Why? You wanna go for a run?”

A couple of street lamps in front of us flickered for a moment, drawing my attention before I responded. “I can’t shift yet.”

“Oh. Pri can’t either.”

“Really?” I replied and she nodded before pulling her phone out of her packet.

“Pri’s at the dining hall. She said we should hurry.” She pocketed her phone once more and turned around. “Le– …Where’d she go?”

At that, I also turned around to see that Lenore was no longer behind us and I glanced around because she was still a couple of steps behind us when I looked over my shoulder moments ago so she couldn’t have gone far, but I didn’t see her.

“Did she forget something at the clubhouse?” She could have used super speed to go back.

“I’ll call her,” Josie said and I glanced at her to see her already doing so. Then I glanced around again and realized that my eyes had skipped over a girl who was standing off the side several feet away from us, staring off into the distance.

I recognized her as one of Chelsea’s friends so when she glanced in our direction, I lifted my hand to wave at her, but the shocked expression on her deathly pale face made me pause. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. The corner of my mouth twitched at that thought and I almost laughed because with what I’d learned about Blackwood and the CMES today, she might have actually seen one.

“Hey,” I called out and she opened and closed her mouth a few times as she glanced in the direction she’d been staring off into earlier.

“She’s not answering,” Josie said just as the girl said, “I– Uh… Sutton just got grabbed.”

‘Huh?’

Josie responded without missing a beat. “What do you mean she got grabbed?”

“Like…” The girl glanced in ‘that’ direction again and I followed her line of sight to the woods. “She got grabbed!”

“By who?!”

Suddenly, a feeling of unease, like something watching me, poured down my spine like ice just before the girl’s eyes rounded and she pointed at something past me and Josie.

“That!”

I immediately swiveled to see who she was pointing at and my heart missed a beat. ‘Oh my God…’ A figure stood several feet behind us, its glassy eyes locked onto me, and the world seemed to slow until I was trapped in that moment. ‘Oh my God.’

There was a ghost behind us… a ghost. She was there and not, tangible and a delusion, all at the same time. I could see her and through her at the same time.

“Oh my God.” This time I said it out loud and before any of us could react, she suddenly let out a deafening screech and dove through the air, heading straight for me. Fear broke through my shock and I rushed out of her way with super speed.

When I came to a stop, I realized she didn’t stop. She just went straight for Chelsea’s friend who was directly in her line of sight and the girl was too shocked to run out of the way. As she got wrenched from the ground, she let out a screech that matched the ghost’s own and I could only watch in shock as the woman carried her off in a flash, disappearing into the woods.