“Well, if that’s how I have to make it, then we won’t have to wait for the killer to find me. I’ll die if I have to shimmy up that way,” I claimed.
Luke chuckled. “If my lady will permit me, I would be happy to carry you.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I hopped into his arms. “Okay, Prince Not-So-Charming. Make it worth my while. And don’t drop me.”
Luke flashed me his best smile, showing off his fangs to me. “My pleasure.”
Using his vampiric speed, he rushed up higher and higher. The rapid twists and turns made me dizzy, and I squeezed my eyes tight to keep from getting motion sick. By the time we reached the top, I clung to my fiancé’s neck like a barnacle on the pier at Atlantic Beach back home.
Luke patted my back. “You can get down now. We are on solid footing.”
With great caution, I raised my head from his neck and risked a glance. Pitch black darkness met my eyes, and I couldn’t tell the difference between having them open or shut. Peeling myself off of my fiancé’s body, I trusted him and planted my foot on something wooden.
Another light orb allowed me to observe the modest room where we stood. Luke closed the heavy wooden door behind us.
“Now what?” he asked.
“I guess we wait to see if we were being followed.” I pulled my family’s token out from underneath my stained sundress and held it.
Hot energy pulsed against my touch, and I appreciated Granny letting me know she was still with me. A part of me wanted her to manifest in her spectral form, but we needed to keep things less complicated in order to be ready if our trap worked.
My engagement ring sprang to life as well, and it vibrated on my hand. “I think Isabella is here with us.”
Luke swiveled around, watching me. “Do you think she can hear me?”
“I don’t know.” Although I tried my best to interpret the slight connection I held with the ghost, I really had no clue. “Why don’t you try and reach out to her. See what happens.”
“How do I do that?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Talk to her,” I suggested. “Tell her everything you wish you’d said to her the last time you saw her.”
Luke strode into the center of the space. His mouth opened and closed several times as he tried to find the words. Finally, he began to speak in Italian. The more he said, the faster his pace sped up. He paced back and forth, his hands gesticulating into the air. At some point he stopped moving and turned in circles, looking for any type of reaction. When nothing happened, his shoulders drooped.
“What did you say?” I prompted, closing the distance between us and touching his arm.
A pink tear fell from the corner of his eye. “I apologized and told her I should have helped her fight for her love. And that I wish she understood that all I wanted when I spoke to her that night was for her to come out of the tower and come back to us. I never meant for her to think I was mad at her or that I agreed with our mother and father.”
I rubbed his back to comfort him. “I’m sure she knows all this.”
“I also told her about you,” he continued, giving me a weak smile through his sadness. “How you have brought love into my life. How it’s so strong, and that I understood why she fought so hard for what she wanted. And then I told her if she needed to, she should move on and be at peace.”
“Maybe that’s all she needed to hear. Because I don’t feel any—”
The ring on my finger buzzed with a strange cold energy. I stumbled away from Luke and held my hand. The tingles spread down my arm and flowed over my body, covering me in the foreign substance and filling my insides until I thought I might get sick.
“Ruby Mae, what is happening?” Luke moved to come to me, but I stopped him.
“Don’t,” I panted. “Just…wait.” My left hand lifted in the air, no longer in my control.
A strange sensation overwhelmed me, and instead of fighting it, I invited it in. It fed off my own magical resources and the power being in this location gave it. A form billowed out of the ring like smoke until it took the shape of a person.
“Isabella?” Luke exhaled.
“Luca,” the spectral figure sighed.
My fiancé fell to his knees. “Isa,” he cried.
The ghost of his sister opened her mouth and said something to him.
“She wants us to watch,” Luke translated.
The space around us changed. A simple bed lay behind me. I found myself standing next to a young woman with hair the same color as Luke’s but eyes like his mother’s. She sat in a chair, gazing out a window opening. Something caught her attention, and she spun around and stood up.
A man about the same height as Luke, but with much longer hair and a beard, entered. He spoke to Isabella, his body rigid with purpose.
“No, I don’t want to see this,” Luke complained, waving his hands in front of him as if he could banish the vision. “Please don’t make me relive my mistake.”
Isabella grabbed the younger version of my fiancé by his sleeves and fell to her knees. She cried, but Luke would not comfort her. He yanked himself out of her reach and left. His sister collapsed on the floor in tears.
“Are you showing me this to punish me? Have I not suffered long enough?” Luke wailed, fresh pink tears streaming down his face.
“No, wait. Look,” I instructed.
The spirit of Isabella had sped up the time. She no longer wept on the floor, but she stood in the window frame, staring down at the ground. Her right foot hovered out into the air as if she contemplated jumping, but at the last second, something startled her.
Another figure entered
