Sweet Ruin(6)

With her revenge done, the urgency to find her brother overwhelmed her. Could she teleport to him as well?

She pictured him with MizB in some burbs house. Nothing. Jo strained to teleport. Didn’t move an inch. Do this the old-fashioned way. She tore out of the house, running toward the neighborhood MizB had shown her on a library map. Past the interstate, past the tower, past the pond . . .

Right when Jo thought she’d maxed her speed, she increased it. Trees and houses zoomed by. She was like a rocket!

In minutes, she’d reached the outskirts of the neighborhood. She raised her face to scent the wind.

Thaddie. Close. She followed his trail to a fancy house. Outside, she leapt into a tree, peering in windows. Spotted him! He was asleep in what looked like a guest bedroom. She imagined sitting beside him on that bed; suddenly, she was.

Adult voices murmured just beyond the door. The Braydens.

God, Thaddie looked so small and vulnerable under the covers, his Spidey doll clutched in his tiny hand. What if he’d been in the Thadpack when Wally had struck? What if he’d . . . died?

The more emotional Jo got, the more she wavered between ghost and body. She had to get Thaddie out of here before the Braydens saw her. “Wake up, baby bro,” she whispered.

He blinked open his eyes, sitting up in bed.

“We gotta go, Thaddie.”

His brows drew together. She heard his heartbeat race. “You’re not JoJo.”

She couldn’t look that different. “It’s me, kid.”

“Not JoJo, not JoJo,” he repeated as he scrambled back from her.

“It’s me. Spidey knows me.” She reached for the doll, to get a kiss on her cheek.

Thad yanked it from her, yelling, “You’re not JoJo! Not JoJo! NOT JOJO!”

She shot back in confusion, her palms raised; the door burst open. The Braydens.

MizB gasped at Jo, then lunged for Thaddie on the bed. Mr. B. shoved them behind him, his strong arm protecting them.

From me?

“Oh, dear God,” MizB murmured, as Thaddie squeezed her like a lifeline. “You d-died.”

Jo nodded.

“You need to pass on.” Mr. B. swallowed. “Or s-something.”

The three of them looked like . . . a family.

Jo’s voice cracked as she said, “Thaddie?”

He wouldn’t look at her, burying his face against MizB’s neck. Jo reached for him, but her fingers passed right through him. Grasping, grasping for her little boy.

The Braydens shielded him, MizB screaming, “Get away from him, you, you ghost or . . . or demon! Go back to hell where you came from!”

No, Thaddie’s mine! When he wailed as if in pain, Jo’s eyes watered. She told the Braydens, “I’m gonna get this figured out. But I will be coming back for him.”

MizB whispered, “Don’t.”

Jo floated forward, yearning for one last stroke of Thaddie’s curls . . . but she felt nothing. She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t hug him. Her Thaddie. A sob burst from her lips. I did die after all.

And this is hell.





TWO




TEN MONTHS LATER

It was finally time to collect her boy.

Jo ghosted to the Brayden house and stood outside a window, scanning for him among the people crowding the rooms. They were all dressed in black, talking in hushed voices.

She was busting Thaddie out tonight, couldn’t stand the separation anymore without tearing her hair out. . . .

For the first couple of months, she’d ghosted around the household, hovering over him as the Braydens spoiled him with tons of toys and a puppy and all the things Jo had wanted to give him. His washed Spidey doll sat on his toy shelf, buried among all the others.

If Thaddie called out for her, Jo had been there in an instant, never quite showing herself. Yet at the same time, her presence had seemed to upset him.

She’d found the Thadpack in a closet and had stolen it back—would hug it like an idiot.

For the next couple of months, she’d tried to back off, watching over him from a distance. Other kids came over to play, and he was always so psyched, finally having the “fwends” he’d longed for. They ran around in the Braydens’ perfect backyard with the puppy on their heels.

Her baby brother called out for her less.

While Thaddie grew like a weed and laughed more and more, Jo had been doing her worst, no closer to figuring herself out or controlling her on-again, off-again ghosting. Sure, she could float right into his bedroom, but how could she nab him when she was just air?

Determined to get to the bottom of her transformation, she’d returned to town. The hospital’s blood bank had drawn her. After gorging on bags, she’d gotten her body back, growing solid.

She guessed that was what vampires did. Though she did wonder why she could still go out in the sun.