The Haunted_Edit Copy 4-7-17 no reviews

Chapter Seventeen
On Tuesday night, Susannah and I tread heavily on the
wooden staircase leading up to the apartment. Ethan’s car was
parked around the block so Tucker wouldn’t notice and think we
were ganging up on him or staging an intervention. My heart was
down in my feet, weighing them down so much I thought the steps
might break beneath me.
The phone call had been surprisingly easy. He’d answered,
apologizing a thousand times, telling me he didn’t know what had
come over him. He had absolutely not meant to hit Trouble with the
car, and he didn’t know what made him burn himself with the
lighter. After he’d been sorry for about twenty minutes straight, I
finally got enough words in to tell him that it was okay and I needed
to talk to him. He said that was fine and I was welcome to come
over.
Susannah’s hands were in the pocket of her brown jacket
with the fuzzy white lining. She let me knock on the door and kept
glancing in the direction of the car, like she was contemplating
whether or not to bolt.
I had no idea what to expect, but when Tucker opened the
door, he looked completely normal again. His eyes were soft and
welcoming, and his smile was genuine as he stepped aside to let us
in. “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming too, Susannah.”
“Missed you.” She wouldn’t look him in the eyes.
When I walked past him, I managed to meet his gaze for a
moment. There was pain smoldering in the dark brown depths, and
I wondered how much of that belonged to the real him and how
much was caused by the entity inhabiting him.
“So what’s up?” he asked as we all stood awkwardly in the
kitchen.
“We need to talk.” My voice was stronger than I’d expected
it to be. Maybe it was because Susannah felt so weak beside me.
Tucker nodded. “Okay. Do you want to come sit down?”
We followed him into the den with the big L-shaped black
couch. My heart, as leaden as it felt, fluttered a little as he sat in the
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