Chapter 6

"I'm surprisingly very excited about this party. You know, considering I died at the last one, I think I'm doing alright," Deshawn explained while sitting on the bed behind me. He used his hands in big gestures while his voice rang out loudly with amusement.

"You're not funny, you know that, right?" I frowned. I was sitting in front of my full-length mirror while applying my makeup gently. I'd thrown on a simple, red, spaghetti dress and called it a day. I wasn't in the mood to go all out tonight. 

I could see Deshawn watching me through the mirror as I painted my face and his eyebrows furrowed in interest to follow what I was doing.

"Why do you insist on coming with me?" I muttered while applying the mascara slowly to my frustratingly short eyelashes. "You know none of your friends will be able to see you and I'm certainly not going to talk to you all night. You'll just be on your own which sounds boring. Can you even get drunk? Lame."

He chuckled. "I'm too attracted to you to leave you alone." 

I stopped the mascara wand in place and looked at him through the mirror with a lifted brow. "Excuse me?" 

He tipped his head back in laughter. "Not in that way, Rei." 

I spun around to face him. The sound he made felt almost like a rumble and it reverberated through my body though he was nowhere near me. When he finally sobered, his lips held a lingering smile. 

"I'm attracted to you the way a moth is to light. There's this pull that I can't explain, it's like nothing I've ever felt before. When you left the house earlier, I just had the sudden urge to follow. I think we're connected in some way because I can feel everything you do if the emotion is overwhelming enough. I want to stay in your light forever, Rei. I don't want to die." 

I kept my eyes on him for a moment longer and wondered how this happened. If I were anybody else or Deshawn wasn't the one dead, would a ghost still be following somebody around? Or, was it something we had done specifically? 

I screwed the mascara lid back on and threw it in the makeup bag along with the rest of my stuff. Then I pushed myself up onto my feet with a drawled sigh. It was time to go. I threw on my jacket and skipped down the stairs. 

"I'm going," I called out to Dad and didn't wait for a response before I was out the door. 

I'd told my dad about the party earlier, he was hesitant to let me go at first. But, like always, he agreed. It was easy to get my way with him, he was soft like that. 

I pulled my jacket closer to my body and breathed out to see the condensation in the air like smoke. As always, the weather was crappy and the chill bit at my bare legs. It was cold and cloudy while the old moon smiled down and I couldn't get away fast enough. I walked along the pavement to my best friend's house, she only lived down the street. 

Deshawn was at my side less than a moment later. He walked on the curb as though it was a tightrope. His arms widened to keep his balance and the boy could have been floating with that gentle elegance that radiated from his body in waves. Deshawn's face was illuminated by the yellow glow of the streetlamps that lined the pavement and brought a scary dimension to his features. His eyes seemed deeper, his jawline was sharper, under-eye bags darker. 

"If you insist on joining me at the party," I began and he turned his attention to me. "You should help me find your killer. You know, point me to the potential murderers so that I can question them and stuff." 

He scrunched his nose and walked backward to eye me up at the same time. "Why would I do that?" 

I sighed in frustration and crossed my arms over my chest. "I know this must be difficult for you. You don't want to be dead. I get it, that sucks. But you can't just follow me around forever, so you better suck it up and help me out. Alright?" 

He huffed and continued walking, ignoring me. The harsh tone of my voice had cut through the calm of the night and I regretted it. I knew what type of people these Zobel boys were. They had to be nurtured and babied if they were to do anything and I'd ignored the first rule. Deshawn had every right to not help me figure this out. He wouldn't be missing out on anything. 

We finally reached Raven's house and I opened the front gate. We barely ever hung out at her house and so the cobbled path to her doorstep was all that I had familiarised myself with. My house or the fields nearby had always been our go-to. 

I knocked on the door and it didn't take long for Raven Galan to rush out in a whirl of vanilla perfume and jangling jewelry. Her long hair fell behind her shoulders in elegant, black curls, and her makeup expertly done. Raven was a lot better at makeup than anyone I knew. At prom times, she always did the girls' makeup from school and never charged nearly as much as it was worth. 

Raven pressed the cool metal of the car keys into my hands and pulled my arm towards her brother's car on the pavement. I didn't know much about cars but this one was small enough to hopefully fit between all the others that would pile up by the party house. Not that I knew where we were going. 

"Raven, where is this party again?" I wondered when we sat in the leather of her brother's car, torn with wear. 

She laughed. "Sorry, I forgot to say. It's in the city, by the sea. You remember that surfing party we went to in summer, yeah? It's there. The houses right along the beach proper are nice too." 

I started the car and it roared to life, igniting the radio as it played pop hits through the speakers. I flicked on the heaters and a comforting warmth radiated through the car before I switched on the lights and slowly swung from the pavement, ready for the long and dark drive ahead. 

The rear-view mirror caught my attention as it showed Deshawn sitting silently in the back, an expression too complex to decipher adorned his face. I half thought about telling Raven about him then. As he sat in the back like a child, I wanted to tell her everything. 

I didn't, though. I couldn't.