I shut my locker just after last period to find Kingston leaning into the one beside it, a hint of a smirk touching at his full lips. A yelp broke passed my lips, so loud that it managed to catch the attention of our peers and sent heads in our direction. I immediately fell back into the corner between the door to English 11 classroom and breathed out shakily, hoping my retreat would signal for everyone to return to their conversations.

I'd always hated that King could sneak up on me and I'd have no knowledge. I'd grown so used to my super Spidey sense tingling around ghosts, I'd half expected it to work on the living too. Unfortunately, it did not.

"You're jumpier than usual." King commented, joining me again. "Getting visited more often by your ghost friends?"

I shot him a dark look, scanning the area around us to be sure nobody was eavesdropping.

Truth be told, the last two weeks had been horrible. I'd only had a couple ghosts outside of Oliver come to me, but the entire situation with the Mr. Valedictorian was freaking me the hell out. With every day that passed, the more real he became. He'd gone from a gentle touching of my hand to being able to completely grasp my arm or shoulder without it falling through, and with my help, he'd been able to learn to manage his anxiety and fear and wasn't blipping as much. Sadly, this only made things worse. Being around more often meant more memories surfacing. Most of them were vague, things like quick flashes of light or yelling that he couldn't decipher, but it was a step in the right direction. To my relief, he'd asked me to keep Axel out of the mess until we had a solid answer.

"There's a new horror movie out." King continued when he came to the outstanding conclusion I wasn't going to respond. "A few of us are going to see it. Chicks are going too. It's like a group thing to get us hyped for Halloween. Come with us."

"My entire life is a horror movie, King."

More now than ever before.

"Seriously, Fai." he sighed, extending a hand to tuck a loose strand of my dark hair behind my ear. "You've been dodging me for the last few weeks. I wanna hang."

"Why can't we chill, just us?" I considered my question, then straightened the slightest bit when I understood exactly what was going on, "Holy crap, you're trying to get me to give Marcus another chance, aren't you?"

King crossed his arms and started to mutter incoherently under his breath.

"I'm not interested in giving your buddy a second chance, Kinig."

"It's not that." Irritation was clear as day in his voice. "You need to be more social, Fai. Please. You promised you'd come to the afterparty the night of Homecoming and you never did. You owe me."

I slumped back against the wall, caving into the pleading, "Fine. But it better be you who's picking me up."

He flashed me a toothy grin and leaned in for a quick side hug before he disappeared down the hall to his friends standing at the door waiting for him. I waited until he'd disappeared from view to rest my head back against the wall and close my eyes.

My peace was only temporary, as not even a minute later, Oliver's voice filled my little corner of solitude.

"Are you okay?" he asked, and when I opened my eyes, I was staring directly into the hazy, muddied blue of my ghost friend. "You look exhausted."

"I am exhausted." I confessed, in fact, I was too tired to even glare at the people that glanced my way as I started down the hall, assuming I was talking to myself. "I don't even know what sleep is."

Oliver is quiet until we're outside the school, shoving his hands in the pockets of his black slacks. "I can imagine."

"You don't help." I muttered, more to myself than him, "I just want to figure out what happened to you so you can move on."

"Am I that big of a nuisance in your life?" he inquired, and though it had a bitter undertone, he looked in need of an answer. "Because last I checked, Ophelia, you're an antisocial person. You have one friend."

I snickered, "At least I'm not surrounded by people who couldn't give less of a shit if I died."

It was kind of a messed up thing to say, but his words hadn't been nice either, and it was enough to shut him up for a few minutes. Finally, he said, "Maybe not, but you don't have to completely close yourself off from everyone."

"I do." I made a gesture toward him to my left. "In case you forgot, as far as everyone else is concerned I am sitting here having a very heated argument with myself."

He deflated, shoulders slumping forward, "Ophelia, all I'm saying is you need to let your guard down a little. You shouldn't have to handle this all on your own."

"Because people will stick around if they know I talk to ghosts." I snided. "If they don't get me institutionalized, they'll make a run for it first chance they get."

"Your friend stuck around." Oliver offered with a one shouldered shrug, "Axel stayed."

I made a gagging sound at the mention of his brother, "Your brother doesn't count. The only reason we'd acquaintances right now is because you're our common ship."

"O-kay." Oliver said with a smirk, eyes flickering to the street as he watched my father's car pull into the emptying lot. "But he totally thinks your hot, just so you know."

*

I'd just set the flat iron in the cabinet under my sink when I heard the door bell sound through the house, followed by, "Ophie! Your, uh, friend is here!"

I quirked a brow as I hit the lights on my way out of the bathroom, pausing at my bed to grab one of my father's old leather jackets and my purse.

I knew Dad didn't like King, but I would have thought he would of at least bothered to learn his name at some point. Referring to him as my friend was fair enough, though, I suppose. It was surely a step up from "that bad influence."

It wasn't until I was halfway down the stairs and mid-speech that I halted to a stop. "Dad, I told you King—"

It wasn't Kingston shifting on his feet in my dining room, but Axel, my father's eyes burning holes into the side of his head. He'd no doubt just gotten off work and swung by on his drive home. His hair was a matted to his forehead with sweat, car fluids across every inch of his face. The black v neck he wore under the red and black flannel was torn in three different places, and the minute I stepped off the last stair I caught a waft of gasoline that had my hand shooting to my mouth as I asked, "What are you doing here?"

When Axel just reached up with one of his dirty hands to rub that back of his neck, my eyes flickered to my father. He looked as if he couldn't decide whether he disliked him or wanted to reach up and slap a shoulder against his shoulder in praise of getting down and dirty unlike half the boys in this generation.

"I needed to talk to you. About Oliver." Axel answered in a quick, husky breath, clearly uncomfortable with my father's staring, or maybe it was his presence in the room in general. "And I didn't have your number."

I closed the distance between myself and the two men as my father peeked through the blinds at Axel's Jaguar double parked behind his sedan. "How old are you?"

If I hadn't spent over an hour on my makeup, I would have smacked a hand against my face and groaned. My father was impressed, that much was visible in his expression as he eyed Axel a few feet away.

"Nineteen." Axel muttered, tearing his eyes from me and looking to my father. "Your daughter is a friend of my little brother's. They went to school together."

My filter momentarily vacated the premise and I blurted, "I'll be eighteen on Halloween anyway, Dad. Chill."

My father looked between the two of us, before he held his hands up in surrender and took that as his cue to leave us to speak in private. Once his door at the end of the hallway shut, Axel relaxed and his eyes started to roam me, the smirk growing with every inch of my body his gaze covered.

"Are you going on a date?"

I fought the urge to whack him upside the head with my purse and just glared.

King had made sure to mention we were going to a pretty high end restaurant after the movie and to dress in more than just my usual oversized band tees and jeans. Joke was on him, because I had my Dad's jacket and that would change the whole look of this tight dress if I needed it too.

Realizing he was waiting for an answer, I crossed my arms slowly and huffed, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I think he would." Oliver appeared on the step behind me, then checked me out himself. "You look good, Ophelia."

I touched my hand over my chest, "Oh, I'm honored. I have Oliver St. James' stamp of approval over my wardrobe choices."

He chuckled, and despite hearing only one side of the convo, Axel smiled a little himself.

"Look, my friend is going to be here any second to pick me up." I said quickly, extending my arm in Axel's direction. "What's so important you had to show up at my house?"

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and unlocked it before setting it in my palm. "First, put your number in my phone so I don't need to drive all the way over here again."

"He doesn't mind." Oliver piped in as he approached, laughing.

"Shut up, Oliver." I mumbled, shooting him a warning look, "Okay, Axel, what's up?"

Once I'd programed my number, Axel took his phone back and exited out of his phone app and went straight to Instagram. I wasn't at all surprised to find his profile picture was him leaning back into his car in a jacket that mirrored the one draped over my arm, blue eyes glistening with mischief. I'd also be lying if I said it wasn't a hot picture, and I stared far longer than I should have. Once he'd clicked on Oliver's profile, he started to scroll down, "This picture was posted three hours ago. When I scrolled through, there's been posts made for the last month. But it's worded weird and doesn't sound like my brother."

The most recent is a picture of Oliver in U.S Government, one of the many classes I'd shared with him. I can be seen in the far left hand corner leaning back in my chair, my hair a mess under my black beanie as my green eyes sent daggers through Oliver across the room. I scrolled down a little further and my breath caught in my throat. The picture was from the night of Homecoming, the second I'd felt all the hairs rise on my arm and looked right at the doors. Whoever had taken the picture had been watching me.

"I checked his Facebook too, and it's the same." Axel added, eyes darting from the phone to my face. "I don't know if my brother was creeping on you or if whoever. . . whoever killed him is watching you too."

I swallowed hard, hoping to ease the fear in the furling a knot in the pit of my stomach as I turned to look at Oliver a few feet away, "Please tell me you have a crush on me or something."

Oliver just shook his head, eyes as wide as my own as he started to fade in and out. "I can't remember anything, I'm sorry."

As the horn sounded outside the house, Oliver dissipated entirely and Axel moved one of the blinds aside to get a good look outside. Once he'd returned to me in front of the door, he touched a hand to my elbow. I searched his eyes for a moment, contemplating telling my best friend to go without me, but ultimately decided against it and shook him off, whispering, "We can talk about this later."

As I opened the door, Axel caught my elbow again and said, "Be careful, Ophelia."

"I will."

He shook his head, blue eyes narrowing. "Seriously. Watch your back."

I knew better than to let him out before me and ordered, "Leave once the car pulls away. I don't need King commenting on you being here."

"Alright."

I stepped on to the porch, and as I reached for the knob, I met his blues and assured, "I'll be careful, Axel."

Then I shut the door behind me and jogged down the driveway to meet King at his truck.