Chapter 1

My spirit watched. That's all I could do.

My son, Finn, only eight years old, stood in the hallway.

He grabbed at his mother's hand. Laura. My Laura.

"Mom, please," Finn begged. His voice was small, tight with fear. "Daddy's not breathing right. He's making funny noises."

Laura pulled her hand away. Irritation tightened her face.

"Finn, stop it," she said, her voice sharp. "Your father is fine. He's just being dramatic."

Dramatic. That's what Julian Vance had told her.

Julian, her old high school flame, back in her life like a bad dream.

He'd filled her head with poison, convinced her I was faking, manipulating her.

I wanted to scream, to tell Finn I wasn't faking.

But I had no voice. No body.

Just this... this watching.

Laura adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder. She was going out. To meet Julian, I knew.

"He always does this when I have plans," Laura said, more to herself than to Finn.

My chest. It felt like a vise. Even as a spirit, I felt the echo of that crushing pressure.

The asthma attack had hit me hard, fast.

Stress had been eating at me for a month, ever since Julian slithered back.

He'd spun some tale about me stealing his business idea years ago. A lie.

Then he'd claimed he had some rare, expensive illness. Another lie.

Laura, completely charmed, had believed every word.

She'd made me drain our savings. Money for my workshop expansion. My dream. Gone.

For Julian's fake treatments.

My own medication, the good inhalers, the nebulizer treatments... I couldn't afford them after that.

Laura hadn't believed I was truly sick then either.

Julian had whispered in her ear that I was "overdramatizing" to make her feel guilty.

Now, in our bedroom, I was dying.

My spirit hovered, a useless observer, tethered to the pain.

Finn was crying now, his small shoulders shaking.

"No, Mom! He's really sick! Please, just look!"

Laura sighed, a sound of pure annoyance.

"I don't have time for this, Finn. Julian is waiting."

She opened the front door.

"Mom!" Finn screamed, a raw, desperate sound.

He tried to run after her, but he tripped over the rug in his haste.

He went down hard, his chin smacking the polished wood floor.

A small cry of pain escaped him.

I rushed to him, or tried to. My spectral form passed right through him.

Helpless. Utterly helpless.

Laura glanced back, her expression hardening.

"See? Attention-seeking. Just like your father."

She stepped out and closed the door behind her.

The click of the lock was the loudest sound in the world.

My world. Ending.

I felt a final, terrible squeeze in my chest, a tearing sensation.

Then, a strange lightness.

I was free of the pain, but not free of the watching.

My spirit drifted towards the bedroom.

Finn was already there, scrambling to his feet, ignoring his own hurt.

He pushed open the bedroom door.

He saw me on the bed. Still. Too still.

"Daddy?" he whispered.

He rushed to my side, his small hands patting my cheek.

"Daddy, wake up. Mom left. She didn't believe me."

His voice cracked.

He laid his head on my chest, listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there.

"Daddy... please..."

He started to sob, deep, body-wracking sobs.

He didn't know I was already gone. He didn't know I was right there with him, my spirit aching with a grief that had no outlet.

He fumbled for the emergency smartwatch I'd gotten him.

His little fingers, clumsy with panic, tried to dial Laura.

Call after call went to her voicemail.

She wasn't answering. She was with Julian.

Finn gave up on the watch.

He climbed onto the bed, curling up beside my cooling body.

He just lay there, crying softly, his small hand gripping mine.

"I'll take care of you, Daddy," he whispered into the silence. "I promise."

My boy. My brave, loving boy.

Alone with his dead father, betrayed by his mother.

And I, his father, could only watch. A ghost in my own home, witnessing the start of a nightmare.

The air in the room grew colder. Or maybe it was just me.

Finn's small body shivered.

He pulled the comforter up, trying to cover both of us.

He was trying to keep me warm.

My heart, if I still had one, would have shattered into a million pieces.

He eventually cried himself to sleep, his face tear-streaked, still clutching my hand.

I stayed there, a silent sentinel, watching over my son.

The minutes stretched into an hour.

Then another.

Laura didn't come home.

Finn stirred, mumbling in his sleep. "Daddy..."

I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell him it would be okay.

But it wouldn't be okay. I knew that with a chilling certainty.

This was just the beginning.

Julian Vance was a poison. And Laura had drunk him down willingly.

And Finn, my innocent Finn, was caught in the middle.

The house was quiet. Too quiet.

The only sound was Finn's soft breathing, a fragile rhythm in the heavy silence of death.

I looked at my own still face on the pillow.

A stranger. That's what I looked like.

The robust contractor, the man who could fix anything, reduced to this.

Killed by neglect. Killed by obsession.

Killed by the woman I loved.

My anger was a cold, hard knot inside me.

But my love for Finn, that was a fire. It was the only thing keeping my spirit here, tethered to this world of pain.

I had to watch. I had to see what happened to my son.

Even if it destroyed what was left of me.