Ghost (The Halloween Boys, #1)

by Kat Blackthorne

To the girls like me who wear black, sleep with stuffed animals, and don’t quite fit in. I wrote this for you. Choose your monster. And I really hope you pick the one inside yourself.

I am pretty fearless, and you know why? Because I don't handle fear very well; I'm not a good terrified person. Stevie Nicks

People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk. Steven King

She called herself a ghost. But I was the one that was going to haunt her.

When I was a child, I was afraid of ghosts. When I grew up, I realized people are more scary. Unknown

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. Steven King

Dragon, Wolf, and Devil were who I called my found family. My chosen brothers. And me? I was Ghost.

“I’d love to be haunted by you,”

Terror made me cruel . . . Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

I wanted to shake her and scream, you don’t have to be afraid anymore. You have me. And then chain her to my bed and yell, you should be very afraid now that you do.

And I thought to myself as I watched her brush her hair, I could live like this until she died peacefully of old age. I could follow her and look after her. Then when she left her physical body, I’d find her soul and follow it too.

And now she was cursed with me forever.

I stroked her hair and held her tight against my body. “I’m sorry I upset you, Blythe. But please stay. I’ll leave you alone forever. You never have to deal with me again.”

Her home. Our home. Ash Grove. And this time I wouldn’t let either of them down. This time I would keep them both safe. This time, I wouldn’t fail.

“I could stare at you for two hundred lifetimes and it wouldn’t be enough to take you in.” Not just a figure of speech for me. It was true.

I’d burn the world for her.

“You’re mine now, do you hear me? Fucking mine. Forever.”

I wish these words would be whispered into my ear asdfghjkl

My bones, my blood, everything in me burned with fire for her. I needed her.

I kissed Blythe as if my entire woeful existence depended on it.

“So you don’t care that we’ve killed people, but you draw the line at vandalism? Interesting.”