Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(72)

“This will be so much more fun with you in the mix.” Pachico grinned, his teeth sharp and menacing in the flickering light. He took a threatening step toward her. “Look how much fun we had in the kitchen yesterday. You remember that, right? Remember how hard you screamed?”

“—there’s this possession thing he’s got goin’.”

Alarm flared across Jude’s face, pulled the muscles of his face tight. “It has skin-walked?”

Possession. Skin-walking. That agonizing acidic pain flashed through her mind.

Oh . . . God . . . her stomach heaved. Revulsion rolled through her. This . . . this thing had been inside her? She’d never feel clean again. Drinking a dozen gallons of bleach wouldn’t come close to washing away the loathing.

“Yeah, well you’re not so peachy yourself, you condescending bitch,” the thing that used to call itself Pachico said. Its muddy, inhuman eyes promised retribution and agony. It took an ominous step forward, the hub’s stone walls shimmering within its translucency.

Possibly she should have tried to mask her revulsion and horror.

“Rawls?” Faith stumbled backward, a film of sweat, cold as ice, slicking her skin.

“Jude!” Rawls’s arms slid around her, dragging her tight against his chest.

“Here.” Jude’s voice, much closer.

Pachico’s expression darkened with rage. “You—”

His transparent image flickered, in and out, like a hazy satellite image. And then it was gone.

Still shaking, Faith turned her head. Her gaze locked on Jude’s tight, uneasy face. Slowly, her eyes dropped to his chest. A slight bulge against the fabric of his T-shirt hinted at the location of the weaving that carried his ghost-protection spell.

The hiixoyooniiheiht that had protected her too.

“You want to tell me what the hell just happened?” Mac asked, his sharp question echoing through the chamber.

How odd . . . the commander’s voice—which until now had always sounded too loud and hard and twitchingly angry—sounded comforting. Familiar. Safe. Downright trustworthy.

“What happened”—Faith’s voice climbed shrilly. She scanned the cavern for a translucent monster—“is that I tapped into Rawls’s hallucination.”

And she wanted to believe that. She wanted to believe that so bad. Shared delusions existed after all. They’d been studied. There was plenty of empirical evidence to back them up.

“You tapped into my hallucination . . .” Rawls repeated dryly. He tilted her chin and stared into her eyes, a combination of amusement and irritability on his face. “You’re not gonna seriously go with that.”

“Hey, it happens. Read up on Point Pleasant back in 1966. Shared delusions are an accepted psychological phenomenon.” She tried to interject rock-solid certainty into her voice—but alas, it faltered.

“Which you don’t believe in.” Rawls’s voice was impossibly gentle.

“I want to,” Faith whispered, scanning the hub again.

“I bet you do.” His arms tightening around her, he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“Does anyone have a f*cking clue what these two are talking about?” Mac sounded more confused than angry now.

With a sigh, Faith straightened in Rawls’s embrace, and realized for the first time that everyone was watching them. Everyone. She glanced from curious face to curious face.

Uh-oh. She’d just exposed Rawls’s secret to everyone. Well, not the exact secret, because nobody knew they were dealing with a ghost—except for Jude, of course—but now everybody knew Rawls was seeing something invisible to the rest of them.

So was she for that matter.

“I’m sorry.” As hard as he’d tried to keep this information from his teammates, she should offer him more than an apology. Maybe cooking for him for the rest of the month would make it up to him.

He shrugged good-naturedly. “You didn’t tell them anythin’ they didn’t already suspect.”

Okay, that news surprised her.

“They already knew about Pachico?” It didn’t occur to her until the name had hit the air and he’d grimaced that he’d meant they’d known he was hallucinating, not that he was being haunted.

I’m so sorry. She mouthed it this time, feeling like a complete and utter idiot.

Maybe they wouldn’t identify the name.

Please don’t let them recognize the name.

“Pachico,” Zane repeated, sudden stillness on his face. “Pachico’s dead.” He’d figured it out. Faith could see the realization spreading across his face.

“I know he’s dead.” Rawls paused, shrugged, ran a tense hand through his short, thick platinum hair. “But that hasn’t stopped the bastard from f*ckin’ with me.”

Dead silence fell, hummed through the cavern for the count of five.

“A ghost?” Cosky said, his voice neutral. His face flat. “You’ve been seeing a ghost?”

“Pretty much.”

His answer might have been laconic, his attitude careless, but Faith could feel the tension vibrating through him. Their reaction was important to him—vitally important. Stepping closer to him until their arms brushed, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed, and felt, more than heard, the uneven breath he released. His fingers tightened around hers.