Chapter 27: Love Letter from the Dead

The envelope was old—yellowed at the edges, the ink smudged in places as if touched by something that didn't quite belong in the living world.

Ellie held it between her fingers, her heart hammering as she read the name scrawled in perfect cursive across the front.

Ben.

Her breath hitched.

Victoria's handwriting.

But it wasn't just any letter. It wasn't something written when she was alive, something Ben had kept out of nostalgia.

No.

This letter was new.

The date at the top—just a few weeks before the hauntings started—sent ice straight through Ellie's veins.

Victoria had written to him after death.

Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the paper, her stomach twisting as her eyes traced the words.

My Love,

Death has not changed the way I feel about you.

If anything, it has made it stronger.

You think I am gone, but I am not. I watch you as you sleep, as you dream of me. I feel you missing me. And that longing? That ache in your chest that never fully leaves?

That is me, my love. Whispering to you. Calling to you.

You have tried to move on, but she will never be me. She does not know you like I do. She does not understand the things we shared—the things I took with me when I crossed over.

I will not rest until you are mine again. Until you remember that your heart does not belong to the living.

It belongs to me.

Forever.

Ellie's hands shook.

Her stomach twisted with a rage she didn't know she was capable of.

"He kept this."

He had received a letter from his dead ex-girlfriend, and he had kept it.

Had he read it?

Had he wanted it?

The thought made her sick.

She turned to Ben, who stood frozen in the doorway, his face pale as if he already knew what she had found.

"Tell me you didn't read this," Ellie demanded, her voice trembling. "Tell me you didn't believe a single word of this sick, twisted—"

Ben swallowed hard. "Ellie—"

"Tell me!" she screamed.

He didn't answer.

And that silence—that silence—was enough.

Her vision blurred with fury. "You let her in. You let her stay."

Ben ran a hand through his hair, his face tormented. "I didn't— I thought I was going crazy, Ellie! I thought it was just—*" He stopped himself, his jaw tightening. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Ellie laughed. A sharp, bitter sound that echoed off the walls. "Didn't mean for what, Ben? Didn't mean to let your dead girlfriend keep haunting our relationship? Didn't mean to let her own you even after she was gone?"

Ben took a step toward her. "Ellie, please—"

"No." She took a step back. The letter crumpled in her fist. "She still has a piece of you, doesn't she?" Her voice was a whisper now. "And you want her to."*

Ben's silence was deafening.

Ellie's chest ached.

Because in that moment, she realized something far worse than the hauntings.

Victoria hadn't just come back on her own.

She had been invited.

And no matter how much Ellie fought, no matter how much she loved Ben…

Some part of him still belonged to her.