• ♫ •
I've been waiting for days
Sitting alone in this place

Luke felt he couldn't breathe. And he couldn't, not as a ghost anyways. But his chest tightened so much that his heart had fractured into pieces. His eyes glazed over, but he couldn't let them fall in front of his friends. They had been trying to come up with a good idea or a usable plan to free Mari. His whole world. She was his whole world. His everything.

"Guys, I'm going to go there. Screw a plan. She shouldn't have to wait days for us to figure it out." Luke poofed to the club alone. He recognized most of the details, from the ornate tables to the fancy carpet to the big stage with a thousand spotlights in a hundred colors. The staircase looked the same as it did when he came the first time.

He had no idea what he was getting into back then.

Now, a day before his birthday, he knew exactly what to expect of the ghost that ran the club. Every trick he could pull, spell he could cast, and the power the dead magician wielded. Luke would have to be strong to ward off it all.

"Ah, the first one to show. Are Reggie and Alex joining us tonight?" Caleb didn't look as Luke expected. He wasn't trapped inside the body of a teenager this time.

"No. I'm here to get Mari." Luke didn't say anything that could potentially tie him to the place forever. No matter how much he wanted to. "Let her go. She's not worth your time."

"Ah, but you are. You're what I've been after for a very long time. With the right offer, she will be free. I swear." Luke didn't trust a single word he said. He wasn't an idiot. Or innocent. He promised himself he wouldn't make the same mistakes. "Oh, come on. Don't you trust me?"

"No. You've done nothing to earn it." Luke wanted to spit in his face. "The only thing I want from you is Mari."

"Oh, Luke. Don't worry, she's safe." Caleb didn't say two words that would've launched the young ghost into a rage. For now. "But you'll have to pay the price."

"What's the price?" Luke felt dejected. His head hung low, staring at the sneakers on his feet.

"Ah, music to my ears." Caleb basked in his power over him. The cloak around his neck only fed into his already large ego, along with the top hat and the rest of the magician outfit that came from before he died.

"Don't push it," Luke snarled. His flannel was not nearly as professional, but it made him feel safer in the harrowing club.

"I just need you and your friends to join my club. Be a part of my house band." Caleb thought it was perfectly reasonable. A simple trade. One lifer for three ghosts.

"We will never be a part of your band. I will do anything else." Luke forgot about everything he told himself before. For Marietta, he'd do anything. But saying that aloud was worse than death (or the ghost equivalent: crossing over).

"I think I've got a suitable payment in mind. Meet me here in two hours. Your lifer, Mari is it?, will be released and you can pay me then." Caleb poofed away before Luke could ask any relevant questions. He didn't know what he was paying, and didn't stop for a moment to realize that he might've just sold his soul to the devil.

Since Caleb wasn't there, Luke took that as his chance to leave. With the magician, that opportunity did not come often. He escaped back to the studio, where Alex, Reggie, and Julie awaited his arrival.

Julie, armed with questions, pounced first. "Did it work? Is Mari coming back?" She held her tongue after the first two questions. Overwhelming Luke wouldn't help their case if either answer was no.

"I'm meeting with Caleb in two hours. Mari will be free then." He kept his mouth shut about the "payment", since it would only leave his friends with more questions. Questions he didn't have answers to. Yet, somehow, he could hear Mari's voice in his ear. Singing sweet, tearstained words, he knew they were for him.

Praying for someone to save me

He swore he was going crazy. Sure of it, except he knew the voice he fell in love with. If Luke could only be sure of one thing, that would be it.

Julie and Alex, without a partner of any kind, weren't as familiar, yet they recognized the pain lingering behind the words he didn't say. Mari, in the year that they came to exist and become famous, was integral to the team.

Reggie, however, knew the look in Luke's eyes. Couldn't imagine how much pain he had to be in. Even though he and Lynn were nowhere near that close, the twenty-four hours she told him was starting to weigh on him more and more. She held a beautiful light inside her that drew Reggie in every time they crossed paths.

"Luke, we're coming with you. You can't go there alone." Alex, despite being shy, was the first to speak up.

"No. I can't let you guys get swooped up into a mess I made." Luke disappeared before any of them could talk him out of the deal.

"We're going to have to find him." Reggie glanced at the clock as Alex said that. Two hours until Lynn would be back. Or whether he'd have to find her at "love", whatever that meant. And two hours until Luke would, most likely, trade his soul for Marietta.

Julie, then, remembered their gig, which was due to happen in three hours. All of this was a case of unfortunate timing. And she had to make a difficult decision. One phone call and they were off the set list for the night. She didn't want to make the call, but there weren't many other options anymore.

She swallowed her pride and pulled out her cell. "What are you doing?"

"Cancelling our gig." She dialled the phone number of the club.

"Hey! You can't cancel it. Everything should be under control in two hours. That leaves us an hour until the gig." Reggie rationalized.

"No. I have to. Right now." She did want to say her worst fear, but Alex was thinking it.

"Why not? Luke will be back—" Julie cut off Reggie.

"We don't know if he's coming back!" She took a breath to calm herself before storming off to make the call. It disappointed Reggie and Alex, but Alex accepted the reality at hand. Reggie, on the other hand, wouldn't let it go.

"Luke is coming back. He has to come back." Reggie kept muttering those two sentences over and over while Alex paced across the room. In the back of their minds, Reggie and Alex knew Julie was probably right. Luke, quite possibly, was now trapped at that club for eternity.

Alex disappeared, and Julie and Reggie had no hesitation where he was going. Without a shred of hesitation, they both knew he escaped to have the comfort of his next closest ghost friend, Willie. After everything the two of them had been through, Alex wanted to find him. He'd gone weeks without his friend, and couldn't stand the thought of not being around him. Comfort from him might be the only thing that would ease his mind.

But Alex didn't know where Willie was hiding. How he was avoiding him. The bright pink sweatshirt he had on was a dead giveaway that Alex was looking for Willie, but he didn't care. So much more was on all their minds at the moment.

"Willie?" Alex called out, but the streets of L.A. were so loud he could barely hear himself. "Willie?" The second time didn't turn out any different. "William?" He gave up. It wasn't as if Willie could hear him anyways.

"Alex?" Willie stood behind him in a t-shirt and dark jeans, hair tousled like he'd raked his hands through it a few too many times.

Alex turned around. He froze. He didn't know Willie was even in Los Angeles, much less close enough to hear his cries over the traffic and the hustle and bustle of lifers. Willie didn't know what all was going on, since he only had to be at the club past eight o'clock, but knew that it couldn't be good.

"Caleb took Mari. And Luke is trying to get her back. He's trading his soul for her." Alex didn't want that to happen, but didn't know how to stop it.

"I've got an idea." Willie had already thought of a way to prevent that in case it ever happened again.

Author's Note: Caleb's still as bad as ever. But Willie has a plan! Next chapter will be posted Friday. Until then, vote and let me know what you think in the comments. All the best, MistyRider921.