Page 22 of Challenge Me

The engine cut off. I took that as a yes.

I grabbed a shopping cart and started with the basics. A proper socket set, metric and imperial, because old American cars liked to humble anyone who assumed one system would be enough. Wrenches. Screwdrivers. Pliers. Wire strippers. A voltage tester. Fuses, since that was now a sensitive subject. Electrical tape. Heat-shrink tubing. A decent inspection light.

Then Ghost honked from outside. Once. Sharp. Impatient.

I looked through the glass doors, and his headlights flashed toward the aisle on the far left.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered.

The cashier looked up.

“Haunted car,” I explained. He nodded like that answered everything, or he simply wasn’t paid enough to care.

I pushed the cart down the indicated aisle and found the more serious equipment. A compact tool chest. A creeper board. Protective gloves. A torque wrench that cost enough to make me whimper at the price tag. A few old car manuals, mostly diagrams rather than words, that I didn’t strictly need but grabbed anyway because Ghost’s headlights flashed approval through the window when I held them up.

The cashier scanned everything, occasionally glancing out the front window at Ghost. “Nice Charger.”

I nodded and paused. “He’s a Challenger, actually.” I tapped my card against the glowing screen, covering the total to avoid ruining my evening entirely.

“He?” The cashier raised an eyebrow. I grabbed my receipt, and I hauled the first load outside.

Ghost’s trunk popped open before I reached him. The suspension dipped slightly under the weight of all the tools I’d purchased with the school credit card.

“There,” I said, wiping rain from my forehead. “You have parts, tools, and enough equipment to make Lai deeply uncomfortable. Happy?”

The driver’s side door opened. I stared at it.

“Not even a thank you?”

The radio flicked on.

I sighed and climbed back inside. But as I started Ghost again and felt that old engine come alive under my hands, I couldn’t help smiling. Because tomorrow, Lai was going to get into this car expecting control.

And Ghost was going to hand him a toolbox.

Gods help us all.

Chapter Nine

Ghost

Al had one job left to do: make sure you came down here and drove me out. I’d told him I didn’t care how he did it, but I didn’t know how he intended to get you to me without raising your suspicion, and for a while, I worried he would fail.

I waited all morning and into the afternoon. Then, just past 3.00 P.M., I heard the familiar sound of your heels and cane. You were back, this time wearing a long red coat that reached almost to the ground. Beneath it, you wore a white shirt, bright and crisp and offensive in its cleanliness.

I was going to enjoy ruining it. Ripping it off you.

I dismissed that thought. I had more important things to think about.

Like your hands. Your clean, pretty hands, always gloved or folded over your cane or tucked away from the kind of work that would leave grease beneath your nails.

“Ghost?” Your voice echoed through the garage.

You approached my passenger side, eyes already lowered to your phone. Distracted. Confident. Entirely unaware.

“I need to pick something up in town. Will you dr–”

I opened the door for you before you finished, and you paused, just for a second. Not enough for most people to notice, but I noticed everything when it came to you. The stillness in your shoulders, the way your thumb stopped moving across the screen, the faint narrowing of your eyes as you looked into my cabin.