Chapter 54

KATHERINE.

“Man, this sucks,” Josie said, breathing heavily as she shook the pouch above her open hand but nothing else fell onto the little bit of salt on her palm and I groaned. At least ten minutes have passed and not only had we not found Lenore and Chelsea’s friend or run into any of the CMES members, we’d also been fighting ghosts. Yes… we’d been fighting ghosts.

Not physically though, we’d just been repelling them but the process had made me less nervous about being in this building. In fact, it was actually starting to be fun and kinda like playing Whac-A-Mole except instead of moles, we were whacking ghosts and instead of using a mallet, we were using salt and a fire poker. That was till I found out we were out of salt and had only the fire poker for defense. With the salt, we could get rid of them from a distance but with the poker, we had to wait for them to get quite close to us.

That made this less fun.

“Any chance there’s salt in one of these rooms?” I asked, moving my phone’s flashlight over the doors close to us.

“Fat one.”

A groaning noise suddenly echoed through the hallway, coming from all directions as if the building was coming alive, and I wildly swung the flashlight around to see if any ghost was creeping up on us. There wasn’t but I knew that wouldn’t remain the case for long.

“Can you run?” I asked when I noticed she was still breathing heavily. We were on the third floor now – we had run here at super speed after Everhart and another ghost came for us just as we finished searching the last room and Josie had seemed exhausted since then. It would be no surprise if she couldn’t use her abilities anymore seeing as she’d run all the way here after the ghost took off with Chelsea’s friend and had gone up against violent ghosts without any defense.

She shook her head sideways. “I think I’ll die if I do… I’m starving,” she replied and I gave her a sympathetic look.

“Sorry.”

“Lenore owes me anything I want for a month.”

“We haven’t even found her yet.” The more time that passed, the more that made me unsettled because we’ve been in here for a while now and we haven’t heard Lenore and Chelsea’s friend calling for help. It made me think they were unconscious or badly hurt… or worse.

We both moved to the door next to us and just as we opened it, a feeling of suddenly being approached from behind washed over me and I reacted immediately. I swung the poker while whirling to see if I got the ghost with it but it wasn’t a ghost, it was a person, and he gave me a displeased look as he caught the poker by its middle.

“Theo!” Josie and I said in unison before she added, “Oh, I could kiss you right now.”

Honestly, after taking in his backpack which I assumed contained defenses and the salt bombs attached to his waist, I shared the same sentiment.

“Do you have something to eat in there?” Josie asked, gesturing at his backpack as she walked over to him, while his gaze bounced between us.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Lenore got snatched,” I replied and he blinked at me while Josie began to search his backpack.

“So why are you two here?”

“We’re here to get her back?”

“Huh… Go wait in the UTV outside.” With that, he walked past me and Josie’s brows snapped together.

“Like hell,” she said before we followed him and she continued going through his backpack.

“Lenore’s not here.”

I frowned at that. “Is she in Bram House?” That was Everhart’s primary haunting place.

“No, she’s at the clubhouse,” he replied.

“What?” Josie asked, surprise evident in her voice.

“Blake found her a couple of minutes after he got here. He took her back.”

“I didn’t see him leaving,” I said because I’d been sitting in the UTV for minutes and no one came out the door. Then I remembered there was a backdoor and realized he might have even left with her before Hunter, Keith and I got here.

“There are several back doors.”

“Is she okay?” Josie asked as she pulled out two chocolate bars, a bottle of water, and a flashlight from the backpack.

“Blake healed her. She’s fine.”

‘“Blake’s a healer?” I asked Josie and she gave me a nod before I returned my attention to Theo’s back. God, he was tall. “Where did he find her?”

“One of the hidden rooms.”

Of course, there were hidden rooms in this creepy ass building.

I collected the flashlight from Josie before turning it on and it chased away shadows at a farther distance better than my phone could. “What about Chelsea’s friend?”

At that, he stopped and turned to face us. “Who is that?”

“The ghost took her too.”

A thoughtful expression crossed his face and he nodded before saying, “Go to the UTV.”

“No. We’re not leaving till we find the other girl,” Josie replied and Theo frowned.

“If you get hurt, it’s going to be a ‘you’ problem,” he stated and I blinked at him because he looked like he meant it. “If you get dragged off, I’m only going to come for you when I feel like. Is that clear?”

“As long as it’s tonight, no problem,” Josie answered and when he glanced at me, I shrugged. I was a member of the club now, I needed to be able to do stuff like this if I wanted to remain in the club.

Theo clicked his tongue and glanced at the poker in my hand. “Stay close.”

“You don’t need to tell us twice.”

He resumed walking and we followed, staying a step behind him.

“Have you seen Hunter and Keith?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Are they alright? I heard one of them scream.”

“Yeah.”

“Where are they?” I asked and he let out a harsh breath. He didn’t respond and that was my cue to keep my mouth shut.

After a while of just walking down the hallway in silence without searching the rooms we passed, Josie spoke.

“What’s your plan?”

He came to a stop at that and I thought he was about to tell us to go to the UTV again because we were bothering him, but instead, he knocked on the door we’d stopped next to. ‘Huh?’ Josie and I exchanged a ‘what the fuck?’ look before focusing our attention on him once more.

‘Who does he expect to respond?’ I thought just before the door opened to reveal Ernest inside.

“Um…” I trailed off as I glanced at Josie and she shrugged while the ghost rasped.

“I’m looking for a student,” Theo said to him and my brows snapped together. “Everhart brought her here. Do you know where she is?”

‘...Is he talking to the ghost?’

Surprisingly, the ghost nodded and my mouth fell open.

“Whoa. We can have a conversation with him? That’s so cool.” Josie muttered in awe and I couldn’t help but be even more surprised due to her ability to process things and accept them in mere seconds.

“Can you show me?” Theo continued and the ghost nodded again before stepping out of the room and moving down the hallway at a speed faster than the one he’d used to come after Zac, Josie and I that day.

Then Theo glanced at us over his shoulder. “Keep up.”