Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,16

time since my parents’ disappearance, I’d felt safe. Now I snuggled with the empty space where he’d been, trying to recapture the feeling.

He knocked at the door as I finished dressing, and I found him in the hallway holding two steaming cups. He handed me one, and I smelled a red-eye chai. I smiled and rose on tiptoes to kiss him, but he brushed past me into the room.

“The train leaves in half an hour,” he said. “You ready?”

My heart sank. The old Bennett was back, the cold, impenetrable Bennett who always tried to live up to his last name: Stern.

“Everything’s changed,” I said. “Can we talk about what happened last night?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Well, what’re we going to do?” We couldn’t go back to not touching each other.

“What is there to do? You said it yourself, you fell in love with a ghostkeeper. That’s what I am.” He looked me in the eye. “That’s what I’ll always be.”

I felt like he’d slapped me. If he planned to stay a ghostkeeper, that meant he couldn’t be with me. That meant he didn’t want to be with me—even after last night.

I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t know how to talk to him without getting more hurt, so I turned my back and breathed until I was sure I wouldn’t start crying. Then I focused on packing my suitcase. Bennett waited in the hall as my gaze swept the room one last time. It looked so ordinary, even though everything was different—at least for me. I saw the rumpled bedsheets and blinked away tears of humiliation and disappointment. How could I have thought everything was perfect when Bennett didn’t feel the same? My red-eye chai sat untouched on the dresser as I shut the door, and left that room behind me forever.

We walked to the train station. I didn’t see the buildings around me. I didn’t see the cars in the street. I was blind and numb and empty.

But deep inside, I felt a flicker of hope. I knew he was scared, but he couldn’t give me the silent treatment for the whole train trip. We’d talk, we’d figure this out. Even if we couldn’t be together right now, we could go back to the way things were before. Not touching, but still happy with each other. Still in love.

Except when we got to the platform, he pulled out the ticket. One ticket.

“Where’s yours?” I said.

“I’m not going back with you.”

Blood rushed to my head. “What? Why not?”

“I’m needed here.”

“You’re needed there. We need you. I need you.”

“Emma, I can’t—don’t you see?” he said desperately. “Everything has changed. I can’t go back to not touching you. I can’t look at you without wanting to …” He shook his head. “I can’t live with you in Echo Point and not sneak into your bedroom every night. I can’t watch you giggling with Natalie or playing marbles with Nicholas or sighing over one of Anatole’s croissants and not want to kiss you. I can’t.”

“I won’t do those things. I’ll—”

“I can’t even think—” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Just standing with you in a train station, looking like you want to cry, and I can’t think.”

“We can make it work. I promise, we’ll—”

“No, Emma. It’s impossible.”

“Impossible? We slay ghosts, Bennett.”

“That’s just it. I’m good; I’m one of the best dispellers there is. Whenever there was a truly nasty ghast, the Knell sent me out.”

“I know how strong you are; I’ve seen you in action. You saved me from Neos once.”

“That was before I let myself touch you. I’m losing my powers, Emma. I can feel it already. I woke up this morning and … it’s already happening, and we didn’t even— you’re too much. What happens if I’m with you, and I can’t hold myself back? I might lose my ability to dispel, and how would I explain that to my parents—I can’t find my sister’s killer because I’m in love? It’s over, Emma. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

The finality in his voice stole my words. I just stood there watching him through tear-blurred eyes. The train pulled in, and the screeching of the brakes echoed the weeping in my head.

Bennett helped me board, lugging my suitcase into the compartment overhead. He was right; everything he said was true. I had no solution, I had no clue. I didn’t know anything except this: he loved me, and I loved him.

Bennett said, “Stay safe.”

I nodded, unable to handle looking at him.

Then