Wait Until Dawn by Bailey Bradford (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

body in order to chase away the evil two was like something he’d see on the Syfy channel. And Rich would be susceptible to such attacks again until Mom could get here to weave a protection spell Chris had no hopes of doing on his own.

“I don’t either, but we don’t have to do it if you think we shouldn’t.”

Severo—unknowingly, Chris hoped—had just put the weight of the decision on him. Rich’s life may very well be in his hands, and he doubted whether he deserved to hold such a precious gift. But somebody has to. He remembered Rich’s desolation, Rich telling him he’d wanted, even tried, to kill himself. This was a risk Chris didn’t want to take, but he knew Rich would insist. Anything to get McAlister out of his head.

“I’m terrified of saying this,” Chris admitted as they placed Rich on the bed. The back of Rich’s head and his shoulders touched the bed, as did the heels of his feet. Spasms rippled through his muscles, twitching under his skin. “Rich wants them gone, enough that he tried to kill himself. He can’t live this way, doesn’t want to. Tell Conner to do his best, and keep my man safe.” Eyes burning as his heart felt like it was twisting in two, Chris eased onto the bed and took one of Rich’s cold hands in his own. “Can someone find the crystals? Maybe after…maybe they’ll help.”

“I’ll get them,” Carlin offered, already sprinting out of the door.

“What happens now?”

Chris looked at Matt, wishing he had another answer. “We wait.”

* * * *

The sounds in Rich’s head were indescribable. A tornado and an atomic bomb, maybe. He wasn’t sure. There were howls and screeches tossed in, and a pressure pushing against his skull so that he expected his brain to burst and splatter the walls any second now. Pain filled him, overwhelming, worse than when he’d been tied to the bed and carved up by McAlister. After a while, after so much blood loss and so much shock, he’d quit feeling the cuts inflicted on him. It had pissed McAlister off to no end.

This pain, though, was like that entire experience magnified. Every nerve in his body screamed, his heart pounded frantically, too hard, too fast. His lungs were, oddly enough, pumping oxygen throughout his body at a steady rate. That couldn’t be good—surely his lungs should speed up or his heart slow down. Rich wished he’d been able to pull the trigger, even if it meant never meeting Chris. He’d rather have spared the man this, seeing his lover’s body twisted and nothing more than a place for two spirits to try to destroy one another. Rich was just a convenient spot to them, a living well they could draw on to stalk each other. And he’d never have put Chris through what had happened in his bed, wouldn’t have had him pinned down while the life was almost choked out of him.

A fiery bolt of agony tracked up his spine, and Rich screamed, whether aloud or only in the confines of his mind, he had no idea. The pain slammed into the base of his skull and his body, strung tight, jerked and convulsed. Rich knew because he could see it just as he had before.

No, no no no no! Chris! Rich didn’t care about the still, lifeless body on the bed as he hovered above it. All he cared about was the man holding his hand, cupping his cheek, laying kisses over his lips and unseeing eyes. What had he done?

Sounds burst free around him—Laine, Severo, Matt and Carlin, all reaching for him even as Chris straddled his hips and placed his hands, one on top of the other, over Rich’s heart.

It won’t work, I’ve lost them all. How many shocks had it taken for them to bring him back at the hospital? Rich had watched his body jolt and spasm as the paddles were used again and again. There was nothing here now but hands and mouths and desperation.

“And love.” A lively chuckle from a mischievous blond with a distinctive twinkle in his eyes followed those words.

Rich spun around, floating higher up, which only panicked him more. He didn’t want to leave, not now, not when he’d only just realized what he’d be leaving behind. “Help me, I don’t…I don’t want to die, not yet.”

The blond—Conner?—was joined by two other spirits, an elderly woman wearing too little in Rich’s opinion, and a middle-aged woman whose smile and scent calmed the fear storming through Rich.

“You won’t, not yet. We just had to get you out before we wiped those assholes off the map.”

“Conner! Watch your language!”

Rich snickered considering the scolding came from a woman old enough to be his grandma and she was wearing a frothy negligee more appropriate for someone a third her age. Then again, who was he to judge? He gave her a thumbs-up while Conner apologized profusely to her.

“Looking good, Mrs. Hawkins. Thank you for helping Matt.” Amazing the things he learned when he was dead. The lingerie-wearing woman had been the only person Matt had felt comfortable enough with to discuss his sexuality, and his crappy treatment by Rich.

“I knew why you did it, once I was here and watching you. Not the kindest way, but you were out of it and terrified, so it’s understandable. And yes, I do look good!”

Rich looked at the third spirit, the quietest of the three. She smiled and floated to him, pressing a kiss he actually felt to his cheek.

“Tell my son and his husband, as that’s what they should be if this world were a kinder place, that I love them both, and please, tell Zeke and Laine both that they must let their guilt over Eva’s behavior go. She made her choices. They didn’t make them for her.”

God, he hoped he remembered all this, and he really hoped he’d get the chance to pass on the messages. He glanced