Page 21 of She Haunts Me Still

“I think you can handle it.” Ezra holds up the knife. “Do you trust me?”

Mallory holds his stare as he leans closer, the faintest hint of electricity sparking between their grazing limbs. She chews over the question of what it means to gather trust in her palms like confetti and hand it over to a man she barely knows. She forces a nod, just in time for Ezra to wrap her hair around his long fingers and drag the strands firmly over the blade.

A significant chunk falls away, and her chest tightens.

“Did you need to take that much?” Mallory touches the uneven spot. “It’s gonna look weird now.”

“Can you find a string or ribbon?” Ezra nods toward the counter. “There’s gotta be something in there.”

Mallory rummages in the drawers until she finds a roll of crimson lace. Ezra slices a section with the knife and ties a knot around the hair.

She sinks back to the floor. “Now what?”

He eyes her closely. “Trust. Right?”

“Right, but—”

He moves the knife fast. So fast, it’s several seconds before she realizes he’s slashed the tip of her middle finger on her uninjured hand. A pearl of blood blooms, spreading beneath the nail.

“Ezra!”

“Press it here.” Ezra guides her hand to the knotted ribbon, smearing her blood across the lace. “Like that.”

“You should’ve warned me first,” she says, finally registering the sting.

“So you could’ve worried about how it would hurt?” Ezra gives her a sidelong glance. “Isn’t it better to get it over with?”

Before she can respond, Ezra bends to blow a soft stream of air onto her slashed finger. Time seems to slow to a crawl.

In the quiet, Mallory has no choice but to be painfully aware of his full lips, the shadows clinging to his ivory-toned cheekbones. The darkening in his emerald eyes when he blows on the cut a second time. Slowly. Purposefully. For a nonsensical moment, she thinks he might bring her reddened fingers to his mouth.

For an equally confusing moment, she hopes he does.

Instead, he releases her hand, and she curls it against her stomach, face flushed. She watches as he lays the ribbon in the center of the circle before reaching for the candles. He sets them ablaze, then stretches to turn off the lights. The dressing room falls into darkness, punctured by a flickering glow, and Mallory finds his gaze in the shadows.

“Is this the part where we hold hands and chant?” she asks, but the joke doesn’t do anything to quiet her racing pulse.

“For a girl who says she’s haunted, you’re awfully skeptical.” Ezra extends his hands, palms up. “This won’t work unless you believe it will.”

Mallory stifles a sarcastic response and settles into a similar cross-legged position, facing him. It’s not that she doesn’t believe it will work—sheknowsit’s possible to whisper to creatures between worlds. Perhaps, then, it’s more a fear of what might whisper back. Before she can change her mind, she slides her hands on top of Ezra’s, locking their palms together.

There’s no hiding from the warmth that creeps up her neck at the press of his long fingers between hers, the cool metal of his rings brushing her knees. She can’t tear her stare away from their joined hands, convinced he can hear her pounding heart.

“Jules,” he whispers. “Call to her.”

“Why me?”

“She’syourghost.”

Mallory hesitates again, palms sweating as she absorbs the hidden weight of his words. For so long, she believed that blood-drenched woman was her mother’s ghost. That she was gone for good. But there’s no escaping the truth: This nightmarish wraith belongs to her now.

For the first time, though, the idea of facing down this darkness feels like something she might be able to do. Not just because she has someone to hold her hand, but because Mallory never had to convince Ezra of anything.

He just believes her. And that’s enough to set her courage alight.

“If there are any spirits here,” Mallory starts, “please make your presence known.”

He leans forward, voice quieting. “Tell her you’ve brought a gift.”