This time, it was Clive Rice who sighed.
Chapter 53
Russ
“You can’t give them my car.” Ian leaned back against my desk, arms crossed, emphatic.
“You said you were going to help me.”
“I am helping you. And I’ll continue to help you. But you can’t give them my car.” Ian stretched and pulled his long hair into a ponytail. Then he let it fall, flow like water over his shoulders. He smiled, more with his eyes than his mouth.
I stood, which made my head swim. I would have had that last vial of serum if it weren’t for Ian. “Why? And remember no bullshit.”
Ian took a step forward. His legs were long, and the room was small, and one step was all it took to place him directly in my face. “Look. You know the car was a collection of ‘found’ objects. Well, hypothetically, imagine that some of those objects were found in places the Guild might not have wanted me to look.”
“Like where?”
Ian took a deep breath. “Let’s just say there’s a reason Clive Rice’s watch doesn’t work. And man, Griffin.” Ian’s eyes bored through mine. “You don’t need to know either.”
“At least tell me what they want it for,” I insisted.
Ian stepped over to the desk and picked up an antique letter opener that had belonged to my grandmother. “It might be they want to figure out how I built it,” Ian said, brandishing the opener like a sword. “It might be they want some of those objects back, and it might be I stashed Sarahlyn’s gold under the intake manifold.” He stabbed the base of my fern with the opener. It stuck in the soft dirt like Excalibur. “And it doesn’t matter because you aren’t going to give it to them.”
This time, it was me who stepped forward. Being this close to Ian had the same effect as four quick shots of espresso; energizing and disorienting. Unlike most ghosts whose personalities were muted by death, Ian retained the intensity that I’d always found unsettling.
I removed the letter opener from the dirt, wiped it off on the bottom of my shirt and stashed it in a desk drawer. “God, Ian. I don’t even know what to address first. You stole money from the Guild and hid it in your impossible-to-hide car? Are you out of your mind? Never mind, don’t bother answering that. But you’re dead. Aside from the money, why do you care if they examine your car?”
Ian’s eyes surged black. “I still have a reputation.”
“A reputation,” I echoed. “You’re shitting me, right? What am I supposed to tell them?”
Ian folded his arms. “Tell them you don’t have it.”
“But I do,” I said.
“But you won’t.”
“And why won’t I?”
“Because you’re going to give it to Hampton.”
“I’m going to give Dec the Mustang?” The only thing that stopped me from laughing was the serious expression on Ian’s face. “Why the hell would I do that?”
I turned and faced the bed, hoping the change of view would be enough to allow me to make sense of Ian’s plan.
Ian pushed his way between me and the bed and sat, his long legs pressing down on my ankles. “We have to talk about you trusting me,” Ian said.
“No, we have to talk about boundaries,” I replied, stepping back.
“Griffin, that’s the same conversation.”
My skull hurt. I’m in over my head. Worse, it’s too late to do anything about it. “First, you have to stop barging into my house, into my room without asking. It’s creepy.”
Ian stood.
“Second, if you’re going to insist I do ridiculous things, you’re going to have to come up with better reasons.”
Ian didn’t move, but somehow the space between us had diminished.
“And third…”
I couldn’t finish speaking the third thing because somehow Ian’s mouth was on mine. His lips were frostier than I remembered, but the urgency of them was like always. Ian’s kisses were cold steel, dark alleys, the thumping bass of a nightclub, the surge of serum through my veins. There was nothing gentle in Ian’s wanting, and I wished I minded, but I didn’t. It had been so long since I’d allowed myself to be touched that it was as if I were being possessed all over again.
Ian began to pull away, but this time I reached up and pulled him close. I didn’t know if I did it because I wanted the kissing to continue or because I was terrified of having to say something once it ended.
Words evaporated. There was the momentary dissolution of every carefully crafted defense against the world I’d had created. Ian’s cold hands cupped my neck, and I felt myself became as insubstantial as a spirit.
I was drowning in sensation, and when my lungs were as empty of air as Ian’s, I dropped my hand, stepped away, turned my back. The room was cold and despite the warmth of my coat, I shivered.
Ian cleared his throat, but his voice was hoarse when he said, “What was your third thing?”
I tried to remember what the third boundary item was, but my mind was blank. “You can’t…” I exhaled in resignation, but that was a lie. I knew it, and Ian knew it. Ian Mackenzie could do whatever he wanted. He always had.
Ian stepped up behind me, not touching, but near enough that his ghost-chill made the hair on my arms stand up. Quietly, he said, “Give Hampton my car, the Guild wants him and he needs to get out of here while he still can. Before they stop him. And they will try to stop him.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” I protested, still not looking at him.
“Anyhow,” Ian said, his fingers landing flat and sure on my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what the Guild wants. It matters what the Guild has, and the Guild has us.”
Ian’s last word rang in my ears. His hand felt heavy and solid through my coat. I tried to ignore it and process things rationally. Dec could have the car. I might not be ready for Dec to leave St. Hilaire, but withholding the car wouldn’t change that. I’d wanted that car more than I’d ever wanted anything. Still, if I didn’t give it to Dec, the Guild would take it anyway, and the realization that maybe it wasn’t the car that mattered to me, but the car’s creator, crystallized in the pit of my stomach.
I nodded in defeat.
Ian stepped around in front of me, too solid, too intense, too real to fit the description of “ghost” that I’d been taught. He reached out and wrapped a hand around each of my wrists.
“I know it’s your favorite toy, and I’ll help you build another one,” Ian said. My pulse raced against his fingers. I was so fevered, I could imagine that my own heat was warming Ian’s ghost-touch. “I’ll help you build a hundred. A whole herd of Ian Mackenzie Mustangs.”