Free Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong

gas.
    The man swore, his hand uncurling from the handle of the knife. He tried to hold onto the doorframe, his filthy nails clawing at the metal.
    Then his fingers slid away, and Edie saw him hit the ground.
    She heard the scream as the Jeep bucked and the front tire rolled over his body. Edie didn’t stop until she could see him lying facedown in the dust. She could see the crushed bones, forced into awkward angles. He wasn’t moving.
    Edie didn’t notice Tommy standing next to the car. He pulled the door open, bent metal scraping through the silence, and knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”
    “I think I killed him.” Her voice was shaking uncontrollably.
    “Edie, look at me.” Tommy’s was calm. She leaned her head against the seat, turning her face toward his. “You didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill you.”
    She knew Tommy was right. But it didn’t change the fact that she had just killed a man, even if that man was a monster.
    Tommy’s blue eyes were searching her brown ones, their faces only inches apart. “What made you trust me?”
    “Your eyes,” Edie answered. “The eyes don’t lie.”
    “Even if you’re a ghost?”
    Edie smiled weakly. “Especially if you’re a ghost.”
    She looked out at the road. For the first time in forever, it was just a road—dirt and rocks and trees. She tried to imagine what it would be like to spend every night out here, so close to the place where you died.
    “You’re the first person who ever believed me,” Tommy said. “The first person I saved.”
    “Then why did you stay here for so long?”
    Tommy looked away. “I didn’t have a choice.”
    Edie remembered Wes telling her that most ghosts couldn’t leave a place where they had died traumatically. They were chained to that spot, trying to find a way to right the wrong.
    When he turned back to face her, Edie noticed the sadness lingering in his eyes. And something else. . . .
    Tommy was fading, flickering like static on an old TV set. He stared down at his hands, turning them slowly as if seeing them for the first time.
    “I think you can move on now,” Edie said gently. “You know, to wherever you’re supposed to be. Red Run doesn’t need protecting anymore.”
    “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. But wherever it is, I’m not ready to go.” Tommy was still fading. “There are so many things I never had a chance to do.”
    Edie ran her hand along the black paneling inside the Jeep, and looked at him. “Get in.”
    Tommy hesitated for a second, smiling. “Just don’t take me to meet the friends who made that stuff.”
    Edie smiled back at him. “You can trust me.”
    As she drove away, Red Run disappearing into the darkness, Edie felt the weight of this place disappear along with it. “So where do you want to go?”
    Tommy was still watching her.
    The girl who wasn’t afraid to hunt a ghost.
    “Maybe I’ll hang out with you for a while.” Tommy put his hand on top of hers, and she didn’t need to feel the weight of it to know it was there. “There are always things that need protecting.”

Things About Love
by Jackson Pearce
    LAWRENCE
    he thing about genies is they still act like it’s a big deal when they show themselves to me—even though I’ve been around them for almost three years now. They’re still offended when I roll my eyes at them.
    “So you’re my new guard?” I ask as we pass the science building. I actually had to get a single dorm room, because I was worried a roommate might wonder about me talking to myself constantly. No way would a genie show himself or—in today’s case, herself —to a roommate just to make my life easier.
    “Sort of,” she says. I try not to look at her as we enter my dormitory. I should call Viola and tell her there’s a new guard here. She’d want to know, as she’s the reason I’m mixed up in genies to begin with. She fell in love with one, I got involved, and boom—for “security reasons” the genie