Grave Possession (Wraith 3) by Angel Lawson

ignoring my obnoxiousness. “I have a problem back at my dorm. Can you help?”
    “A problem?” I glanced at Ava.
    “Yeah, I’ve got a ghost thing,” he said.
    “Ghost thing?” Ava repeated. I breathed a sigh of relief. Ghosts with Connor I could handle. Other stuff? Not so much.
    “Yeah, well, can you come over? I think I need some help.”
    “Sure. Let me change real quick and I’ll walk over with you.” I ducked into my closet and pulled on some yoga pants. Halfway into my shirt, I peeked around the door.
    He was entirely focused on the pizza box and not on the fact I was half naked. I guess we’d both moved on. I heard him ask, “Can I have that?”
    Ava nudged the box with her foot. “Go ahead.”
    Connor walked around the room, checking it out. His eyes skimmed past a photo of me and Louis on my dresser. He pointed at the TV. “Zac Efron?” he asked and then muttered, “Man, what a tool.”
    “Ready?” I asked, closing the closet door. I wanted to get this over with. The sooner the better.
    “Yeah.” He crammed the rest of the pizza in his mouth. Nodding at Ava he mumbled, “Thanks,” around a mouthful of crust.
    “Be careful,” Ava said, following us to the door.
    “We will,” Connor said. “I’ll walk her back when we’re done.”
    Ava closed the door and it was just Connor and me. No music, no running, no gym. Just the two of us dealing with a spirit that had lost its way.
    Just like old times.
     
    *
     
    “What’s going on?” I asked. We were a block away from my dorm, walking toward his. I’d never been to his room. I wasn’t even exactly sure where he lived.
    “You know that man I told you about?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s not him.”
    “Um, okay.”
    “I’ve been waiting for him to approach me and tonight I thought it was going to happen. Instead, I got something weirder.”
    Stopped at a crosswalk, we waited for cars to pass. I wrapped my arms around my waist. Even though we were pretty far south, winter was coming. “Connor, what are you talking about?”
    “I was studying in the lounge and I heard this little voice. It sounded like a kid. At first I thought it was the TV or something, but it was coming from the basement.”
    “The basement? Ugh, I don’t like basements.”
    Connor smiled at me and bumped me with his shoulder. “It’s not dark and scary – promise. Our laundry room is down there. I live in one of the converted hotels.”
    Looking for any available space to house students, SCAD transformed several old motels into dormitories. It was sort of weird, but everything associated with art school tended to be a little outside the box.
    “Great,” I sighed. “Why did you come get me?”
    “So, I go down there and it’s this little girl and she’s panicked. Every time I try to talk to her, she started freaking out more. I thought maybe she needed a woman to talk to or something.”
    I gave him the side-eye because that sounded sort of lame, but whatever. In and out. I could do this. “Do you think the dead guy is related?”
    “I dunno.”
    “Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”
    We reached his dorm and I followed Connor up the steps. He pressed in the code to the security pad. A buzzer sounded and he held the door open with one hand, letting me pass.
    It’s late and the day before break. A lot of people have already left for home. Ava and I just stuck around for the Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night. “This way,” Connor said, leading me down a well-lit hallway.
    We passed a couple of open dorm rooms and I couldn’t help but look inside. Most were in complete disarray. Clothes and books and portfolios everywhere. Midway down the walkway, he pointed to an open door and said, “That’s my room.”
    I recognized the guy at the desk wearing big headphones from the gym and eating with Connor a couple of times. He looked up and nodded at Connor and sort of glared at me. Okay.
    “Your roommate seems charming,” I said.
    “Eh, he’s