Page 51 of Hollow

And it’s not just anyone.

No…

It can’t be.

I feel all the blood drain out of me, my vision growing fuzzy, and I fear I’m about to faint.

It’s like looking at a ghost.

The ghost of Brom Bones.

He’s sitting in my seat and staring right at me with those achingly familiar brown eyes of his, so dark they’re almost black. He’s older now, with a dark beard, and he’s so broad-shouldered and Herculean that he barely fits in the desk.

But it’s him.

It’s him.

He came back to me.

“Oh my God,” I say softly, my hand at my lips.

Just then, I feel Crane come up behind me and hear his sharp inhale.

“Abe?” Crane whispers, a gasp.

I twist around to glance at Crane over my shoulder, his eyes focused on Brom too, a look of utter shock on his face.

Abe? I think. Who is Abe?

I look back to Brom, but he’s still looking at me directly at me.

“What is he doing here?” Crane whispers, a tremor in his voice.

And then I remember what Crane told me last night.

And I realize that we’ve both been under the spell of Abraham Van Brunt.

Chapter 16

Crane

One year ago

I can’t stop staring. Not at the man who has been coming into the opium joint for the last few nights. He never speaks to anyone, except a few words to the Meister, who arranges his pipe for him. Then he takes his pipe and sits in the furthest corner, disappearing into the dark until all you see of him are puffs of smoke and the occasional shine of his black eyes. There’s nothing unusual about a single man coming in here and lying down in one of the beds or on a rug on the floor and smoking for hours, and yet, I can’t help but be drawn to this one.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s beautiful. Tall, with wide boulder-like shoulders, and when he takes off his coat, you can see how much muscle he has. He’s just brimming with power, the kind that makes me wet my lips. And then there’s his longish hair, his beard, those eyes of his that are so brown they’re like teak and ebony. All of these things call to me. Makes my cock jump to attention, even when the opium is competing for my body’s attention.

But that’s not why I’m so fixated on him these last few days. It’s because when he’s in the corner of the room, he’s not blissfully unaware of the world like everyone else seems to be. He’s watching. He sits there and smokes, and he watches everything.

He watches me.

Just as I watch him.

Except he looks like he’s watching for something. Or he’s running away from something. The only difference between him and the rest of us users is that he’s not running away from himself.

I put my pipe down and get up, moving through the haze of smoke and across the room until I’m standing right in front of him.

“Can’t help but notice you’ve been staring at me,” I say.