Chapter 1

The day Anthony Flint returned from his business trip, I got caught in a pileup on the way to pick him up.

When they were loading me into the ambulance, the nurse managed to call him on my phone. The second the call connected, his cold, clipped voice came over the line. "I was just about to call you. Maisie needs a transfusion. Get over here."

I didn't even have time to say anything before I started coughing up blood. The nurse took the phone from me, her voice tight with urgency. "Are you Willow Shore's family? I'm a nurse from Centuro Hospital. She's been in a car accident—she has severe injuries and is in critical condition. Please come to the hospital right away."

Anthony went quiet for a few seconds. Then, he snapped, "What's this stunt you're pulling now, Willow? I don't care what game you think you're playing. Get over here, now. If anything happens to Maisie, you'll be the one paying for it."

The nurse grew frantic. "She's badly hurt—"

He cut her off before she could get any further. "Then take her blood before she dies. If you don't, I'll come get it myself."

Then, he hung up.

Blood surged up from my chest into my throat and nose. I couldn't breathe, so I swallowed mouthful after mouthful, choking it down.

All I could think about was how a living, breathing person could say something that cruel. If I survived this, I would drain every last drop of his blood and fill a water gun with it and spray it everywhere.

…

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to do that. I didn't survive. Instead, I became a ghost, drifting in the air, feeling lost. I watched as the nurse kept trying to reach Anthony, only to fail again and again.

That was just how he'd always been. Once he informed me of something, he would never say it a second time because he knew I didn't dare go against him.

The nurse tried calling my other relatives, but that didn't work, either. I was an orphan, and I'd grown up in an orphanage.

When I was 15, the orphanage director had passed away, and Anthony's parents had taken me into the Flint family. They treated me well enough, but he despised me—mainly because Maisie Jones didn't like me.

And yet, because of Maisie, Anthony kept me by his side. He turned me into her personal blood bank.

I didn't have any friends here, either. In the end, the only "family" I had left was Anthony.

Failing to reach anyone, the nurse had no choice but to have my body wheeled to the morgue. My soul ended up being trapped in the hospital.

I felt truly miserable. "If I can't move on to my next life, I'll probably be stuck here forever."

"That's pretty tragic." A boy, looking about 12 or 13, drifted over to my side. He was also a ghost.

My eyes widened, and I let out a sharp, piercing scream. "There's a ghost!"

"Where? Where's the ghost?" He looked even more terrified than I was.

I froze, then mustered the courage to point at him.

He froze, too. After thinking it over for a moment, he accepted reality and sighed. "Sorry. I haven't been a ghost for very long. I'm still getting used to it."

"Me too," I said.

Just like that, the fear dissolved.

"Whoa, you're even a vengeful spirit. Look at all the blood on you."

I followed his gaze and looked down. I was in a long red dress, but the blood made it look more vivid.

Anthony once told me I looked good in red. After that, all my clothes slowly turned into shades of red. I'd even picked out this particular red dress that day just to make him happy when I went to pick him up at the airport. I knew it was his favorite on me.

Honestly, I didn't think the blood made me a vengeful spirit. If anything, I was a total coward.

A chill ran down my spine as I looked at all the different corpses laid out in the morgue. I didn't dare stay there any longer. I grabbed the little boy ghost and pulled him away from that place.