Chapter 2

The guests flee, whispering behind their hands, leaving a vacuum of stunned silence. Marcus doesn't care. His focus is singular, obsessive. He turns his fury on the people who served my family for generations.

"You," he points a finger at Mr. Davies, our head of security, a man who taught me how to ride a bike. "You're in on this, aren't you? Hiding her. You're fired. In fact, you're under arrest."

He pulls out his phone. Within minutes, state troopers are at the door. They put Mr. Davies, a man in his late sixties, in handcuffs for "obstructing a gubernatorial matter." They lead him away, his face a mask of disbelief and shame.

I drift after them, my formless hands reaching, trying to stop them. But I pass right through the solid wood of the front door.

Next, he confronts Mrs. Gable, our housekeeper, who has been here since my mother was a child. She held me when I had my first asthma attack.

"You'll never work in this state again," Marcus tells her, his voice flat and cold. "I'll personally call every agency, every family. Your name will be poison."

She just stares at him, her chin trembling, before turning and walking out of the house she has called home for fifty years, without a single word.

He is dismantling my life, piece by piece, to punish a ghost. To force me out of a hiding that doesn't exist.

He turns back to Leo, who stands frozen, the red mark on his cheek now a deep, angry purple.

"This is your fault," Marcus says, crouching down to look my brother in the eye. "Every person who suffers, it's because you and your sister are playing games. Tell me where she is, and I'll make it stop."

"She's dead," Leo chokes out, tears finally breaking free and streaming down his face.

"Wrong answer," Marcus says. He stands up, his shadow engulfing my small brother. "If she's not back by tomorrow, you'll be in the foster care system. We'll see how long she lets her precious little brother rot in a state home before she comes out."

He leaves, the heavy oak door slamming shut behind him. Leo collapses to the floor, his small body wracked with sobs.

I kneel beside him, a phantom mother, a phantom sister. I try to hold him, to offer some comfort, but my arms are smoke. All I can do is watch him cry, my own spectral form vibrating with a rage that has no outlet. I remember the cold, the dark, the feeling of my lungs seizing in that vault. I died to protect him from this man, and my sacrifice meant nothing. It only gave Marcus a new weapon to torture him with.