Beyond - Volume 1 (YA Paranormal Romance) (13 page)

He turns his head away from me and stares at the floor.

“How do you become a ghost?” I persist. I long for the truth, ready to hang on his words. I want to hear it from his mouth, that he can become a phantom. I want to know I’m not the only one who’s been seeing things all my life.

“Why aren’t you running away from me? You shouldn’t be near me,” he says.

“You saved me from that black ghost out there, and I’m sure you won’t harm me. Why else did you kiss me?”

He looks at me with an intense
focus in his eyes, and I get the feeling he wants to have a go at me. He coughs and a drop of blood lands on my shirt.

“You’re bleeding!” I exclaim. I rummage through my bag, take out a handke
rchief and wipe away the blood from his mouth.

“It’s not that bad. I’ve been through worse,” he says
, and he snatches the handkerchief from my hand.

I wonder what all that ‘worse’ stuff is, because I don’t meet a lot of people who cough up blood.

“I can’t risk it. You have to forget what you saw,” Damian says, and he gazes at me. His hazelnut eyes are to die for. I try to focus on the conversation, but it’s hardly possible.

“No, I can’t. It’s too late for that,” I say. “What you wrote in my diary you did for a reason. You could’ve led me to believe otherwise, but you chose to risk your secret to comfort me. You can say all you want, but I’m not going to believe you. Damian, you are that blue ghost. I know it’s true. I recognized that kiss
at Billy’s. That was why I ran off. It was the same kiss you gave me in my room.”

He grabs my wri
st and furrows his brows. His grip is strong and almost painful, but I won’t admit it, so I just stare back at him. Then he pushes me away to limp farther toward the stairs. I’m prepared for this. I walk up to him and stand in his way.

“I want to know the truth. I have a right to know it. I want to hear it from your mouth. I’ll never tell your secret, no
t to anyone, I promise,” I say.

He squints at me and frowns.

“No one,” I say. “I just want to know.”

“So, you’re not going
to let me pass?” he asks bluntly.

“No,” I answer and I block the entire staircase by spreading my legs and gripping the
banisters, so he can’t pass me.

“I could push you aside you know, bu
t that would be kind of rude.”

“I’m prepared for that. It’s not li
ke you haven’t done it before.”

He laughs and runs his hand through his hair. “You’ve got a point there.” He sighs and sits on the floor with his arms
on his knees. “I’m sorry I was so rough with you in the hallway upstairs.”

“And the day you grabbed me by my wrist,” I add.

He glances at me with a crude look in his eyes, but then continues. “You’re right, that too. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Right. You just wanted to warn me so I wouldn’t spill your secret?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a moment and just looks at me. “You’re so persistent. I just can’t get you to back off.”

“Indeed,” I say with the most serious voic
e I can muster up at this time.

He laughs and shakes his head.

I sit down on the steps and wait until he starts talking. I won’t leave any sooner and neither will he. I won’t let him. I don’t care about my classes today. Nothing exists anymore except for him and me in this moist basement.

So here we are. He’s staring at the wall
, and I look down at the floor. Minutes pass and nothing happens. His eyes are focused on one point; they don’t move at all.

To break the silence, I start to talk. “So, you’re the blue ghost that I’ve seen multiple times in my room, at the pond and just now in the basement?” I ask as precise
ly as I can.

“Yes,” he answers. My heart skips a beat hearing the truth finally coming from his mouth. It gives me a sense of satisfaction
that I’ve finally gotten someone to agree with the fact that what I see is real and not just in my head.

He refuses to look at me
, and instead he stares at a lone, broken chair in the hallway.

“So you and all those other gho
sts that I’ve seen are real?”

“Yes.”

He truly is that blue ghost. I know I’ve been repeating this to myself many times now, but it’s still so hard to believe.
All the ghosts are real. What I see has always been real.

“What is that black ghost?” I ask. I don’t want to let him know how much his confession and acknowledgement means to me, because he might think I can’t handle the rest of it. But I can. I have to.
I need to know this.

Damian turns his head to look at me. He seems pi
ssed. “He’s a ghost too, yeah.”

“Just like you?”

“Yes, and no.” He sighs and has trouble exhaling. “The black one is a ghost, but he’s dangerous … and some of those black ones can’t return to their bodies, like me.”

I almost jump hearing him say that. Damian can actually return from the dead.

“Why did you come to my room?” I try to remain calm, but on the inside I’m jumping up and down from excitement.

“I can feel them, the ghosts. I know where they are, because I can become a ghost and see them, just like you can see them. I often drive on that road your house is connected to, but ever since you came
to live there I felt there was a presence,” he explains. I nod.

“When I saw you lying on the road that night and saw all those ghost
s, I knew they felt drawn to you. And that’s dangerous, especially with those black ones. They’re evil,” he explains.

“What? There’s more of those?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. The word ‘evil’ scares me. Just thinking about the fact that something like that hid in my bedroom
gives me the creeps.
Is that black ghost still haunting me?

It still doesn’t sink in that I’m listening to an explanation for the
delusions I’ve been having my entire life. I don’t have any condition. I’m not crazy; I just see ghosts. It’s been this way my entire life, without me knowing it. It almost makes me cry, but I know I still have many more questions to ask Damian, and I’m not ready to fall apart yet.

“I came to you at the park because of that black ghost. I knew you recognized me after our kiss at Billy´s
, and I just had to know if you would tell other people about me. Yes, I spied on you, but I had a good reason. The black ghost was hunting you all the time. I knew he’d try to attack you again.”

“So it was real, all of it … ” I stammer while clamping my legs together to find some support. “You saved me from the black ghost in
the pond. It was attacking me.”

He nods and takes his eyes off the floor to glance at me. “I hunt other ghosts. I catch them and send them to the next realm, wherever that may be. Heaven or hell, I don’t know. As long as they’re gone from this place,” he says with a grim voice.

“But you couldn’t catch him in my room. He flew off again,” I say. “That’s why you weren’t at school a couple of days ago. You were tracking him down, weren’t you?”

Damian nods.

“We just saw him here and then you ‘sent him away’.”

“Yeah, sort of. I didn’t have my equipment ready at the park. Unfortunately
, I know this ghost won’t stay away too long …” He turns his head, which gives me the feeling he isn’t telling me everything.

“Why didn’
t you just zap in him my room?”

“Because I saw you,” he says and stands up.

I’m stunned and embarrassed. I know I’m not the only one feeling this attraction between us. But him saying this still catches me off guard.

I have to think before I can ask another question. “How did you write in my diary? Even my
mom denies seeing it.”

“After I rescued you from the street I became a ghost to scare the others away. After that I wrote in your diary, as a ghost.”

“So you can touch things as a ghost?” I ask.

“Yes.”

It’s quiet for a while. I can’t think of anything to ask him anymore, because my head’s exploding with information.

“
Are you satisfied now?” he asks me.

“Maybe
, maybe not,” I say and I put up a simple smile. This is just the kind of answer he would give me. He grins back at me. Then he shifts back into his usual worried self.

“But you can’t tell anyone
. Imagine what they’d do to me if they knew about this. I want to prevent that at all cost. Besides, what I do is dangerous. I’m being hunted as well. You know what you can expect now you’re involved in this. I gave you a choice to stay out of this, to stay out of harm’s way, but it’s too late for that now,” he says as he tries to pass me on the stairs.

“Why?” I ask and I stop him once more.

“Because now the ghosts know they can hurt me by hurting you,” he replies. Then his fingers reach for my face. I almost want to take a step back, but then I feel his hands cupped around my face. He leans toward me and gives me a full on kiss on the lips.

Right after our kiss Damian runs up the stairs and leaves me behind in shock. My lips still tingle from his touch. Intense emotions warm me up inside. The kiss felt just like at Billy’s, before I realized who he was. I don’t want him to stop kissing me.

It takes a while for me to get it together. I’m surprised he kissed me the way he did. He
was so distant and brutish the last couple of days, and now I’m starting to think he actually liked me this whole time. He just wanted to protect his secret.

He’s standing at the top of the stairs, probably waiting for me. On his face is a sly smile.
Did he just run away, only to wait for me upstairs? Is he just insecure?
I chuckle.

Damian and I don’t talk on the way to our next class. My cheeks are flushed
, and on my face is a cheesy smile. In secret I stare at him from the corner of my eyes. I can barely walk straight.

He doesn’t look at me, though I can’t blame him, because I’m too scared to do it either. I wonder if it’s b
ecause he’s ashamed of what he did. But I liked kissing him. Looking at Damian gives me butterflies in my stomach.

I missed b
iology, so there’s nothing else to do but walk to the next class. I’ll apologize to the teacher next time and make up a story.

Luckily
Damian has the same class as me right now. He strolls to the back and dumps his stuff on the table. He seems to like history about as much as I do.

Lillian and Emma come inside and start whispering the moment they see me. They sit down at a table far away from me in a corner of the room and continuously stare at me with venomous eyes. Apparently Lillian’s still mad
, and now she’s even got Emma involved in it.

Joey Mason
saunters toward Damian and gives him a quick fist bump. He sits down at his table in front of me and turns around to face me.

“Hi, Raven.” On his face is a ridiculous smile which almost makes me burst out into laughter.

“So … why did you come to the park, Joey? You just left when we were swimming. And what were you two talking about near the fence?” I ask, curious.

“U
h … well, you know … ”

“Never mind, Joey, she already knows,” Damian suddenly says
, looking from him to me.

“O
h, well that’s easy. Then I don’t have to be all ‘mysterious’ about it anymore.” Joey makes quotation marks with his fingers. “Sorry, but Damian asked me to keep an eye out at the park yesterday, so I did. Nothing personal.”

“What do yo
u mean? What are you two hiding?” I ask. Then the teacher gestures at us to be quiet.

“Worry about it later,” Damian says
, pointing at the clock above the door.

So I’ll have to wait for answers, as usual. But I can think of some theories myself. I know now
that Damian’s capable of becoming a ghost and that the things I see aren’t hallucinations. Joey must also know Damian can become a ghost.

Before I realize
that I’m squeezing my pencil, it’s already snapped in half. So they were talking about me at the fence.
Of course, why else were they whispering?

Damian turns his head
toward me, and I’m a bit ashamed at my frustration, so I hide the pieces of pencil under the table. Then he gives me a confident smile which makes my heart melt. I can only smile back, but I’d love to smother him with hugs and never let go. Though, he’s got so many secrets, and he can get mad so quick it makes me shiver. This guy isn’t good for me; he’s antisocial, secretive, aggressive, and who knows what else. But his touch feels like heaven, and I just can’t stay away from him.
Why can’t I resist the urge to be with him?
He’s too attractive and mysterious, and I’m so curious about our connection and these ghosts. Maybe it’ll go better between us now that I know his secret.