Ghosts of Halloween: A Dark Why Choose Romance

I’m still naked, wrapped tightly in Jack’s arms. Caden went off to the downstairs bathroom that apparently still has water to clean up. I should go, too, but I’m so perfectly happy, I don’t want to move yet.

“This was so beautiful, princess,” Jack says, dropping a kiss on the top of my head, sending sparks into my tired muscles. “If I knew fucking you was this good, I would have…”

But he stops, his breath skirting over my skin as his hold tightens. I don’t answer, his regret so visceral, it pierces me, too.

Even though Jack didn’t finish his thought, the spell is broken. Regrets, his and mine, rise into the air like smoke, and I grit my teeth. I don’t want to think about it. That Halloween two years ago. When Jack demanded that I break up with Michael and come here to see him.

He promised me a relationship. Promised me things I never thought I could have. And I would have come. I wanted to, but…

I worry my lower lip, the after-sex sparkly glow seeping out of me. I glance at Silas, who stands in the corner with his arms folded, long fingers tapping out a rhythm on his bicep. He seems agitated.

“What happens now?” I ask, turning to look at Jack. “And will you finally tell me how you’re here? Or is that a secret?”

Jack looks troubled, frowning in silence, and finally, it’s Silas who answers. “There won’t be any secrets left after tonight.”

There is something so final, so cutting in his words, I flinch. Silas pushes away from the wall and comes over, all graceful, body sinuous. He looks like a predator stalking prey, and I shiver, instinctively pressing into Jack’s warm chest.

When Silas crouches in front of me, eyes flicking down my naked body, I press my legs together, suddenly self-conscious. I know he’s gay. Does my nakedness disgust him? Does he think I’m ugly? I think he must. I only feel pretty when desired, and Silas will never want me.

But when his eyes come back to my face, something soft and warm glitters in their depths before his mouth twists into a sharp, mocking grin.

“Do you know how we died, angel?” he asks, voice verging on amusement.

“Fuck you,” Jack hisses but doesn’t say anything else. His arms tighten around me, his breathing picking up, and the tension in the air infects me, roiling in my gut.

“You… you were shot,” I say quietly, the images flashing in my mind, as fresh as if it happened last night.

I see them, snapshot after snapshot in my mind, the images infused with my grief. Body bags rolled out through the gate. Blood on the dusty floors. The policeman’s face when he delivered the news.

I feel my own pain from that night, folded and buried under this new, impossible wave of anguish. So insignificant and shallow in the face of this horrifying, impossible loss. A thorn I could never take out or heal from, because what followed was a million times worse.

I lost everything that night. But all my losses paled when compared to Noah’s death.

My heart thunders in my chest, and I fly out of Jack’s embrace, landing on my hands and knees, face inches away from Silas’s. He flinches but stays put, and I pant, looking into his mocking eyes, the new realization choking me from within. The whirlpool of hope inside me turns and turns, growing in power, until I’m dizzy.

I’m afraid to ask, but I must. I must know.

“Noah died that night, too,” I say through a tight throat, my words no louder than a whisper. “Is he… Where is he?”

Silas watches me for a long moment, drawing it out, and behind me, I hear a choked sound from Jack, but I don’t turn. I stare at Silas, wild hope flowing through me in wave after wave, making me nauseous, and as his lips twist into a sharp smile, I release a shaky breath, waiting, waiting…

“He’s gone,” Silas says, getting up. “Gone for good.”

I stay down at his feet. My eyes blur with tears, and I can’t see him anymore.

For a beautiful, glittery moment, I thought I’d see my brother. And now, it’s like I lost him all over again.

Through the painful, broken howl rising in my throat, I hear Jack cursing Silas. “Can’t you fucking let this go, you asshole?”

“Not until it’s over.” Silas’s voice is cold when he answers.

And then, I don’t hear anything more, because my grief takes me under. I wail and shake, and Jack holds me, stroking my hair, his hands gentle. He shushes me, and then I’m in his lap, and we rock together, and I still can’t stop.

No matter how much time passes, the loss of Noah will never stop hurting. He was my only person in the world. The only one who truly gave a shit about me. Not Harlow, the armless girl, not Harlow, the slut… But me.

And he’s gone, and for some reason, these three came back, but he didn’t.

I hate myself for it, but I would trade them all, even Jack, for a few minutes with my brother.

The door creaks open, and another body presses close, another pair of arms filling the gaps left in Jack’s embrace. Caden is here, smelling of soap and smoke, his rough cheek at my temple.

When I try to stop, gulping deep breaths to quiet my sobbing, Silas speaks again over Jack’s and Caden’s murmuring voices.

“Do you want to know what happened that night, angel? I can give it to you first hand. You only have to ask.”

I freeze, the grief stopping in its tracks, a new focused energy filling me. Because I don’t know. Nobody knows. The shooter was never arrested, and the case was buried, dismissed as a gang shooting, the scum of the earth killing each other.

Not worth pursuing. A waste of resources.

The lack of closure, the sheer pain of not knowing, is sometimes worse than my grief. I know my brother’s killer walked free. Sometimes I torture myself with thoughts that I might even see him, maybe even greet him, completely unaware.

As I walk through town, I look at people’s faces, trying to reach deep into their souls to see the hidden truth.

Are you the one who killed my brother? Are you? Are you?

I never find out.

When Jack snarls at Silas, telling him to shut up, I shake off his and Caden’s hands and reach for my dress, lying crumpled on the floor. But when it’s in my hand, Silas yanks it away with a cold laugh.

“No. If you want me to tell you, no clothes.”

I turn to him, staring without understanding, because why would Silas say that? He doesn’t want me that way. But as my vulnerable eyes meet his mocking ones, I know. He doesn’t want my naked body. He wants the power that comes from being clothed while I’m naked.

I straighten, keeping my head high, and something approving flickers in his eyes before he throws my dress on the floor and rubs his hands together, as if to flick off dirt. I track his movements, my entire being vibrating with the need to know.

“What exactly are you planning?” Jack asks, his voice colder and more menacing than I ever heard. I flinch, glancing at him, and he looks furious. Anger comes off him in dark, chilling waves, the air crackling with something unnatural and vicious. I have an urge to move away but his hand lands on my shoulder blade, steady and reassuring. “What will you tell her?”

“How her brother died,” Silas says, unruffled by Jack’s threatening posture. “Only this.”

In a fleeting moment of curiosity, I wonder what else is there to tell, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I want to hear who killed Noah. Whose fault it is that my brother is dead.

“Tell me!” I demand, hands balled into fists, my prosthetic pounding with phantom pain.

Silas grins at Jack, nods at me, and starts speaking.