Page 63 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“So long as the ghost can’t hurt us, I think we’ll be okay. If the snow stops.”

“And if the snow doesn’t stop?”

His nostrils flared, jaw clenching as he struggled for an answer. She watched him for a moment, eyes going to the light stubble along his chin, the patch along his jaw where it didn’t grow, the bob of his throat as he swallowed.

And that was answer enough.

They were trapped for now, and potentially for the near future. Trapped within a haunted castle, trapped together with their friends.

Trapped.

She had come to the castle for a new start, but it felt like the beginning of the end. She’d come for a story, for a way out of the pit she’d dug for herself, and she’d been handed more than she bargained for.

“All right.”

His eyes snapped to her. “All right, what?”

“Let’s go inside. At least it’s warm there.”

Silently, hand in hand, they trudged back to the castle. Knowing and seeing the thing in the window, thepersonin the window,made Pen want to stay outside, to linger until her limbs were too numb to withstand it any longer. But she didn’t want to be alone, and she was cold, and at least she had Neil by her side.

She stopped outside the side door, chest heaving, breathing sporadically as all the what-ifs flitted through her mind. What if they didn’t make it out? What if this was it? Neil turned to look at her, lips curving down. He took her hand, squeezing gently. Pen felt her pulse stutter under his touch.

“Hey,” he said, stepping forward and cupping her face in his hands. “We’re going to be okay.”

“How can you know that?”

“It’s us. And you’re the most stubborn person I know.”

Smiling, he reached around her and opened the door, motioning for her to go ahead of him. Her stomach twisted violently as she untied her boots and stepped out of them. Her socks were soaked through from the melted snow, but she was too cold to notice.

“You know what my father would say?” Neil asked as he slipped off his boots and unbuttoned his coat.

“What?”

He brushed curls from his eyes in a sweet, almost boyish way as he smiled down at her. “He’d have warned me to light sage before ever entering this castle. Smudge the shit out of it, he’d say.”

If Pen closed her eyes, she could imagine it, that thick, familiar scent. It reminded her achingly of home. Her family had smudged enough when they’d moved homes over the years, ridding the places of any negative energy. So much so that her apartment and her things still had the softest hints of white sage even after all these years.

“Mine would have done the same.”

Neil pulled off his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks, turning to her. Pen stood frozen, fingers wrapped tightly around her coat.

“Penelope.”

Her head snapped up. God, she loved the sound of her name on his lips. “Yes?”

He gently pried her fingers from her coat. He smiled down at her, that dimple forming on his cheek. Pen met his eyes through her curtain of bangs, and there was something new there, a strange sense of understanding between them. They were more similar than they could have ever imagined.

They stared at each other. One beat, then another. When she didn’t pull away, Neil nudged closer as he pushed her jacket down, and Pen thought about fleeing as he tossed it to the side.

Her heart was in her throat, and she hadn’t felt like this about anyone in… well, ever. She’d been so scared of facing her past that now, standing in front of it, she wondered what it would feel like tofinallyface it.

“Penelope,” he said again.

“Neil.”

“Hmm.”