Some of the poison that Laila dumped in her sister's water bag must have entered Ariana's blood. If I did not act fast, she would surely die.

Even though that Laila was a ghost, I managed to push her aside. I scrambled to the tube that connected the water bag to Ariana and frantically scanned the room for a pair of scissors or something else that could cut the tube in half.

"Are you not going to stop me?" I asked Laila as my eyes surveyed every part of the room.

She crossed her arms and shook her head. "There is no point in trying to stop you and Derek from saving her now. It is already too late for her."

"No, it is not!" we heard another voice protest.

I recognized the voice in an instant. It belonged to Derek! He had returned and was invisible. That is why Laila and I could not see him.

My ghost friend turned visible a few seconds later and slammed his ghostly fist into Laila's ghostly face. She cried out and stumbled back.

"Leave, Laila," Derek demanded. "You have won. We have lost."

She uttered a growl and rubbed her nose. "You know, Derek? If you were not dead, you would be the next target on my list." With that, she floated down and vanished under the floor.

Derek hurried to my side, and I asked him if it were true. That Laila and Liam got their way and that my girlfriend would die.

"We have not lost yet, Daniel. There is still time to save her."

He waved a ghostly hand, and a pair of sharp scissors appeared in his grip. He remarked that these were the best pair, handed them to me, and pinched the end of the tube that was attached to Ariana. He then instructed me to cut near where he was pinching, and I nodded and did so. My girlfriend was separated from the water bag filled with poison.

My ghost friend released his small grasp on the tube and picked up the water bag and the rest of the tube. "I am going to get this poison far away from Ariana and you and the other humans. The last thing that we need is for some innocent human to accidentally die from the poison."

"Good idea," I complimented. "I will stay with Ariana and keep an eye on her in case that Laila and Liam show up."

Later, I was sitting in the waiting room and staring down at the floor. I was twiddling with my thumbs. Derek returned from wherever and floated next to me. He wanted to know why I was out here and not next to the bed that my girlfriend was resting in.

I looked up at him. "A couple minutes after you left to take care of the poison, two doctors and two nurses piled into the room to help Ariana. They practically threw me out of there and said that a doctor would visit me here in the waiting room to discuss whether she is alive or..." I gulped. "...dead and what the next steps are."

"Hopefully, they are drawing out all the poison that was already in her bloodstream," Derek said. "If not for us, she would not have the chance to survive."

I spotted a doctor from the corner of my eye. A clipboard with paper was tucked under his arm. I prayed that he was coming to see me.

"Are you Daniel?" the doctor asked.

"Yes, sir. I am here because of my girlfriend Ariana."

"I have news about her."

Derek and I glanced at each other, and then back at the doctor. We crossed our fingers.

"I have good news and bad news," he continued. "The good news is that we were able to save Ariana in the nick of time. She had poison in her blood for some reason, but we were able to get every drop out. She is clean and perfectly healthy."

Derek and I sighed happily, and I pretended to act in disbelief of this.

"We will look into how that poison got in her. 'Cause there was no trace of it when she was admitted to the hospital."

"What is the bad news?" I said.

"The bad news is that we were unsuccessful in removing the makeup and fake hair from her."

"She is not wearing makeup and fake hair."

"Oh. So...you have a disturbing relationship with your grandma?"

"Ariana is not my grandma. She is my girlfriend and used to look as young as me. She is not supposed to be old. She is supposed to be a teen."

"I am sorry, Daniel. There is nothing else that neither the doctors nor nurses can do."

My heart ached. "What...what do you think that I should do now?"

"The best place for Ariana is in the nursing home that is located in the next town over."

A half an hour later, my girlfriend was discharged from the hospital. The three of us slowly walked down the sidewalk, and I kept a good eye on her while Derek and I were chatting.

"No way am I sending her to a nursing home," I said. "It is not fair to me, and it is definitely not fair to Ariana. Plus, Laila and Liam will make another attempt at murdering her once they find out that she survived."

"I wish that I was a much stronger ghost," Derek commented. "That way, I could protect you and Ariana." He snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute."

"Wait a minute what?"

"I just thought of another way that we can turn your girlfriend back to her young self."

We halted in our tracks, and I forced Ariana to do the same. "How? Tell me."

"Only ghosts know about the purple stone."

"A purple stone?"

"Not just any purple stone. The purple stone that can cure all curses."

"Where is it?"

"I have no idea."