The Killer I Came Back For

In my third year of being dead, I came to Cole in a dream.

“Honey,” I said, “could you burn one of those little paper-craft cats for me? It gets lonely down here.”

Cole just smiled. “How about a hot ghost with a six-pack instead?”

“Yes! Oh my god, yes! Abs are a must.”

Then he pulled out a rope.

“Okay, hang on,” he said, his smile turning wicked. “Let me just go die real quick.”

1

It was the third year of my death.

As he did every year on this day, Cole came to visit my grave. He used the flame from the burning offerings to light a cigarette, the smoke curling into the cold air.

“Fuck, you died young,” he muttered.

Tsk.

Such a charming man.

He kept rambling, a one-sided conversation with a block of granite. “It’s Valentine’s Day, you know. Of all the days to pick for a death anniversary. A real power move, Ava. What am I supposed to do when I start dating again? Bring my new girlfriend here to meet the old one? Talk about a mood killer.”

The word “girlfriend” echoed in the space where my heart used to be. A jealous fury, cold and sharp, whipped through me. I gathered a gust of wind, sending a spiral of ash from the offering bowl straight into his perfectly styled hair.

Cole froze, watching the miniature cyclone. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not actually here, are you?”

Yeah, I am. Happy now? You’ve pissed me off so much you almost brought me back to life.

Of course, he couldn't hear me.

So he just clasped his hands together in a mock prayer, raised his eyes to the sky, and yelled, “Ava Ross, if you’re listening, help me make a billion dollars this year!”

I touched his hair, and the man asks for a billion dollars. Unbelievable.

In your dreams, asshole.

I went silent. The fun was over. Cole seemed to sense it, the energy shift leaving him bored. He took one last drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out on the corner of my headstone, the cherry glowing red against the gray stone before dying.

His long, elegant fingers traced the outline of my photo etched into the marble.

He stood there for a long time.

“Ava,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “I don’t think I’m going to come back after this.”

A tremor went through me.

Cole and I… we were a tempest. Most of our time together was spent at war, but in the lulls, there were moments of impossible tenderness.

I remember the year I was at my most reckless, biting his lower lip until he winced.

“Cole,” I’d whispered against his mouth, “if one of us dies, how long does the other one have to wait before they can move on?”

He’d started tickling me then, deflecting. “You’re already planning on replacing me?”

“With a handsome older man. Silver fox. Eight-pack abs are non-negotiable.”

He had sighed, pulling me closer. “Three years, I guess. That’s the traditional mourning period, right? Three years.”

And now, here we were.

The three years were up.

I guess I couldn’t blame him.

2

Cole sank to one knee, his gaze fixed on my photograph.

“You look so young, Ava,” he murmured. “But I’m getting old. I’ve already got gray hairs.”

He was still painfully handsome. But the last three years had been a relentless grind of building his empire, fueled by sleepless nights and too much whiskey. At least the eight-pack was still there. I’d checked.

“We really don’t match anymore, do we?” he said to the picture.

As he started to get up, a single white chrysanthemum flew through the air and smacked him squarely in the face.

Cole frowned, plucking the flower from his cheek and turning to find the culprit.

It was a little girl, no older than seven or eight. Her hands were clenched into tiny fists, her face flushed with righteous anger.

This was new. Cole looked intrigued.

“Hey, kid. Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s not nice to throw—”

“You’re a bad man!” she squeaked.

“I am? How so?”

“You put your cigarette out on the lady’s gravestone!”

Ah. So that was it.

A slow smile spread across Cole’s face. He walked over and crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level. His voice was pure, playful mischief.

“You don’t get it,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “That was our thing. She used to…” He paused, then covered the girl’s ears with his hands, his expression turning strangely innocent. “She used to put her cigarettes out on me all the time.”

I swirled around him, a frantic, invisible storm. He’s slandering me! It was one time!

The little girl wriggled free. “What are you saying? I couldn’t hear you!”

Cole stood up slowly. “Nothing you need to hear, kid.” He glanced around the empty cemetery. “Where’s your mom?”

The girl’s voice was small but proud. “Mommy says I’m seven now. I’m a big girl, so I should learn to come visit the lady by myself.”

A bitter, humorless smile touched Cole’s lips. He started walking away, his voice so soft I almost thought I’d imagined it.

“Yeah,” he whispered to the wind. “If she hadn’t saved you, she’d be twenty-five now.”

3

Back in the Administration office, I was slogging through my afterlife paperwork when my fellow spirits drifted over.

“Ava, are you seriously not going to reincarnate? You’d rather take the spectral civil service exam?”

I offered a faint smile. “You guys don’t get it.”

With birth rates what they are, you could end up anywhere. And while my own life was cut tragically short, I at least had one major asset: a rich ex-boyfriend.

In the beginning, Cole sent offerings by the truckload. Flowers, champagne, letters… he was single-handedly causing a spiritual overflow. The Warden himself had begged me to visit Cole in a dream and tell him to tone it down.

That was the first and only time I’d done it, until tonight.

It was about three months after I’d died. Cole was in the brutal early stages of his startup, running on fumes and sheer will. Finding a moment when he was actually asleep was a challenge.

When I finally found him passed out on his office couch, I didn’t enter his dream right away. I just watched him for a while. For all his talk, Cole didn’t seem heartbroken by my death. I never saw him shed a tear.

Dying in a car crash is an ugly business. My head had been… well, it was bad. The mortician had done his best, piecing me back together, applying makeup to hide the worst of it. But when it came time to dress me in the traditional, modest burial gown, Cole, who had been stone-faced through the whole process, finally spoke up.

“No,” he’d said, his voice raw. “She would have hated that. Put her in something beautiful. A sundress.”

I’d been there, weeping invisibly. The floral one, please.

But I’m getting off track.

His company was taking off, but he looked haggard. Thinner. Still ridiculously handsome.

When I finally slipped into his dream, he was on that small sofa. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw me pulling the corners of my mouth into a ghoulish face.

He blinked, unimpressed. “Oh. A ghost.”

“Seriously?” I huffed. “Could you at least try to be scared?”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. He threw an arm over his eyes. “Ava, you couldn’t scare a fly even when you were alive.”

So I straddled him.

“How about now?” I whispered, shifting my weight.

Cole went still. A slow grin spread across his lips. He brought his hands to my waist. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

I leaned down and kissed him.

We spent the rest of the night like that, lost in a dream. It was only at the very end, as the sun began to rise in the living world, that I remembered my mission. “Cole, ease up on the offerings. You’re causing an inflation problem.”

I vanished.

A moment later, Cole woke up. He sat up, a dazed look in his eyes. Then he glanced down at his lap, a dark blush creeping up his neck.

He ran a hand over his face and swore. “Fuck.”

Then he stumbled toward the bathroom.

After that, the sheer volume of offerings did decrease. But as his business boomed, the quality skyrocketed. He started sending the spiritual equivalent of entire seasonal collections from Chanel, Dior, Hermès.

I became the best-dressed ghost in the underworld.

4

An empty, aching void opened up in my chest. A familiar sourness stung my nose.

Cole wasn't coming back.

No. That wasn’t acceptable.

Sure, every time he visited, I put on a brave face. Floated around him with an air of detached coolness.

Still thinking about me? Can’t get over this, huh?

You’re just another chapter in my book, baby.

You have no idea. The line of hot ghosts wanting to date me stretches all the way to Paris.

But I only had that kind of bravado because I knew he couldn’t hear me. Now that he was actually leaving for good? I was panicking.

I paced back and forth, my ghostly feet wearing a groove in the ethereal floor. I scribbled down a list and, with a deep breath, dove back into his dreams.

He was not happy to see me.

“Well, well,” he said, his arms crossed. “If it isn’t her royal highness, Ava Ross. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Okay, so three years without a single dream visit was probably a bad move. I’d been too busy haunting the girls who bullied me in high school. Priorities.

I put on my most charming smile. “Cole…”

He just sneered. “Oh?”

I tried a different approach. “Babe?”

“Tsk.”

I froze, then mumbled something under my breath.

“What was that?” he mocked. “Did you leave your voice back in the land of the dead?”

“Honey!” I finally blurted out.

That seemed to please him. A corner of his mouth twitched. “Spit it out.”

Since he was planning on finding a replacement, I figured I deserved a little something to ease my own loneliness.

“Could you maybe burn a little paper-craft kitty for me? You know, for company? To ease the solitude?”

“You’re lonely?”

“Mhmm. And I prefer orange tabbies, just so you know.”

Cole tilted his chin up, a dangerous glint in his eye. “How about a ghost boyfriend instead? The kind with a pulse?”

My jaw dropped. “You’re finally getting it! I have needs, you know. I’ve been celibate for three years. I’m losing my mind.”

He clapped his hands together, a look of pure delight on his face. “Great! What’s your type?”

I pretended to think, tapping a finger to my lip. “Definitely needs a six-pack. And young. I don’t date anyone over twenty-five.”

I was just getting started on my list of demands when the dreamscape shifted.

Suddenly, Cole was holding a thick rope. A sturdy beam materialized overhead.

I swallowed hard. “Honey?”

He gave me a smile so bright it was blinding.

“Just wait right there,” he said cheerfully. “I’m on my way.”

Oh, hell no.

I frantically shoved my shopping list into his hands.

“I DON’T WANT A BOYFRIEND ANYMORE!” I shrieked. “JUST REMEMBER TO SEND THE BAGS!”

5

I was admiring the mountain of packages at the spectral post office.

“That’s enough new clothes to last me a few decades,” I mused. “Though, the latest Birkin still hasn’t arrived.”

I was happily tearing into a Chanel box when one of my ghost-friends drifted through the wall in a panic.

“Ava! Your ex-boyfriend was in a car accident! He’s dying!”

My what?

By the time I rushed to the scene, it was bad. Cole was barely breathing, slumped over the steering wheel.

And clutched in his hand was a delicate, exquisitely crafted paper cat.

Beside the wreck, Cole’s spirit was already detaching from his body, his ethereal form flickering. He stared at me, his eyes wide with confusion. “Ava…?”

There was no time to think. I flew at him and shoved his spirit with all my might, forcing it back into his broken body.

“YOU BURN THE NEW BIRKIN BEFORE YOU DIE, YOU ASSHOLE!”

Inside the mangled car, Cole’s bloody fingers twitched.

6

After a long night of surgery, Cole’s vitals stabilized. But he didn’t wake up.

I stood by his hospital bed all night, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. I reached out and gently traced the line of his nose, my ghostly finger passing right through him. As expected, he didn't stir.

When I returned to the underworld, I was greeted with news: I had passed my exam. I was officially a member of the Administration.

But before I could even celebrate, I was summoned by the Review Board.

The Warden sat at the head of a long table, taking a slow sip of tea.

“Ava Ross,” he began, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. “Due to your recent interference, your ex-boyfriend, Cole Miller, who was scheduled to die, is now alive. However, our projections show that in three months, he will become a serial killer.”

I slammed my hands on the table, a thunderclap of spectral energy.

“That’s impossible! Absolutely not! My Cole is a gentleman! He’s kind and gentle. He wouldn’t even kill a spider! And you’re telling me he’s going to kill people? That’s bullshit!”

The Warden choked on his tea, coughing violently for a moment before composing himself. “If you’ll direct your attention to the screen.”

A large monitor flickered to life, displaying a scene from three months in the future. Cole, wearing a clear rain poncho, his eyes cold and disdainful, looking down as if at a piece of trash. A spatter of blood hit his cheek, tracing a path down his neck.

The camera panned to the victim.

A man. His familiar gold-rimmed glasses were shattered, his nose broken, the mask of cultured civility gone. He was on the ground, weeping and begging for his life.

I frowned. How dare that man’s filthy blood touch my beautiful Cole’s face?

I sat back down calmly.

“Okay, so maybe murder is a little extreme,” I conceded. “How about a stern warning?”

“The entire purpose of this board,” the Warden said, his voice dripping with gravitas, “is to prevent this exact kind of nepotism from staff members! Any employee with a first-degree relation to a violent felon will have their credentials immediately revoked.”

I shot to my feet again. “So what happens to me?”

“We’re giving you a chance. Return to the mortal plane. Stop Cole from committing these crimes.”

“How? He can’t see me. He can’t hear me.”

“Ah,” the Warden said, a faint smile on his lips. “But thanks to you, he had a near-death experience. And now… he can.”

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