A/N: Good day to you, intrepid reader! :) For those of you who have missed the first two stories in this series, STOP NOW! Go hunt up "Life After Danger" (Part 1), and "Love You to Death" (Part 2) before continuing, otherwise this isn't going to make much sense to you. For those of you who have been with us since the beginning, you guys rock and rock HARD. My cousin Briee and I have cooked up a pretty darn interesting little story for y'all, and I hope you enjoy reading it half as much as we enjoy writing it. We're projecting ten chapters, same as the last two stories, and we've got an M-rating for a reason, so if lemonade isn't your thing, go no further. Anyways, please r and r and enjoy reading about our beloved Chlerek.

Disclaimer: We are not Kelley Armstrong, we make no money from this, and we do not own the rights to DP or the characters, but if anyone wants to get me a nice graduation gift... *hint, hint*

"Chloe."

I could see Mark's soul in my hand, eerie and white, like ghosts from the movies. I held his essence in my fist, a responsibility I wasn't sure I was ready for.

"Chloe."

I tried shaking him off, but I couldn't. His ghost lingered. His essence lingered. I felt him hovering, waiting, watching. I closed my eyes, pushing, straining, trying to banish him. But he just laughed.

Suddenly, I was pulled away from my nightmare. Waking up, I gasped, clutching my heart. But the dream wasn't ending.

"Chloe."

I glanced around my room but I couldn't see anything. No shimmering lights. No ghostly apparition.

", I'm right here." A laugh. The same taunting laugh from my dreams. From that night in the forest.

"M-M-Mark?" More laughter.

No, no, no, this was not happening!

He said my name again, his voice warping. I put my hands on my ears, hoping that this was just left over from my dream but my gut told me otherwise.

I killed him. And now he was haunting me.

His voice, calling my name, kept warping until it reached a high pitch. If Derek had been in the room, I'm sure he would have heard it.

Suddenly, his voice dropped and it boomed in my ears, "Chloe!"

"Go away!"

Moments later, my dad burst into my room holding a baseball bat. "Who's there?" His eyes were going back and forth in my room, trying to find a culprit.

"I had a nightmare," I said, feeling bad I woke my dad up. My hands were sweaty and trembling as I rubbed them against my thighs. "I guess I was yelling in my sleep."

After one last lingering glance around, he sat down on the bed with me. "Do you want to talk about it?"

How in the world would I tell my dad I had killed someone by ripping out his soul? To protect myself and my werewolf boyfriend, who paralyzed the guy's brother by throwing him into a wall? Oh yes, I'm sure it would go over so well.

"I'm fine. It was just a dream." I gave him my best I'll-be-fine smile and he nodded.

My dad looked down at his hands, where the base ball bat was and laughed. "Glad I didn't have to use this thing."

"Me too," I said. "Me too."

Mark's voice kept nagging in my head for the rest of the week. Sometimes, it would be just his voice, calling my name. Other times, I would hear him laugh at me, taunting me, but his words were a bit strangled. Once, he appeared in front of me, nearly scaring me half to death and I had to stop abruptly because I thought I would bump into him. That's how real he looked.

Unfortunately for me, it also made me look a little crazy, just stopping on the side of the street for no good reason. To cover it up, I checked inside my purse, so that anyone who was watching would assume I thought I lost or forgot something. For the next hour, Mark laughed and laughed at me.

Jaime had explained to me that necromancers have a glow to them, and based on what several spirits have told me over the last little while, I glow brighter than most. Just my luck…Lost ships seek out lighthouses, lost or troublesome spirits seek out me. Because of my extra boost of power, I can usually force any annoying spirits back to their afterlife, which is apparently impossible for any other necromancer to do. But just in case I ever ran across an extremely powerful spirit, Jaime had given me a few different ways to get rid of them. But when even the smoldering vervain mixture failed, I had to admit defeat. It was official: I was being haunted.

Finally, the end of the week came and I went over to Derek's for supper, stumbling on the stairs from exhaustion. I hadn't seen him that week, which was the only reason I had managed to keep my resident pain-in-the-ass a secret. I had held off on telling him because, really, what could he do? It's not like Derek could see or hear Mark, let alone punch him. But Mark's continuous presence was starting to bother me and the weariness was showing on my face.

"Is something wrong?" Derek asked as we set the table. Kit and Simon were in the kitchen getting the food ready and Tori was still upstairs. It was the third time he'd asked in fifteen minutes.

I sighed. I had wanted to handle this myself, but I knew that if I didn't tell him, he'd be frantic after a couple of days. "Ghost problems," I admitted reluctantly. "I think I need to call Jaime."

"Oh." He was silent for a moment. "I'm going up there next weekend."

That was his way of asking me if I wanted to come along. "I'll call Jaime and see if she'll be there."

He nodded; the problem was solved in his mind. "Good." Suddenly, he came around the table, where I was placing forks and knives. His arms came snugly around my waist as he nuzzled my neck, making me giggle. "Are you busy this weekend?"

"Well I was thinking of spending this whole entire weekend locked in my room writing my screen play about a werewolf and a necromancer falling in love…"

He growled as he kissed my neck. "I can think of other things that would be better to do in your locked room."

I giggled and sighed as he bit me softly. He pulled away so abruptly that I wobbled, but I could hear Kit and Simon's voices coming from the kitchen, moving our way.

I was pretty sure my face was a lovely shade of tomato, but Derek just grinned at me before going into the kitchen to help bring out the food.

I finished placing the utensils, trying unsuccessfully to ignore thoughts of Derek and I alone in the same room.

That evening after dinner, I called Jaime's cell. I was glad when she answered it; I hate leaving voicemails.

"Hey, Jaime, it's Chloe."

"Oh, hey, Chloe." A faint thump came through the phone as she adjusted it on her shoulder. "How's it going?"

"Not bad. You?"

"Great. I just finished the last show in my tour, so I get some well deserved time off."

"Any chance you're headed to Stonehaven?"

"Probably. Why? Are you and Derek planning a visit?"

I explained to her that Derek was going up and I wanted to tag along to talk to her. "I'm having some annoying ghost issues." A heard a snort behind me. I closed my eyes. Was it Derek at the door? Or was it said ghost? I hoped he hadn't followed me here.

"Well I guess you could call me an expert on that. I've had my fair share of those." She laughed. "Well, come on up. I'll see what we can do."

I thanked her and got off the phone.

I went into the living room where Simon and Tori were arguing over which movie to watch. Derek was sitting on the loveseat, waiting for me.

"Chloe! You need to help us. I want to watch "The Gamer" while Simon wants to watch this, zombie movie or whatever it is." Simon was about to start protesting. "I told him you see enough zombies you won't want to watch more on screen. So you need to pick one."

I was almost flattered by Tori's thoughtfulness. But I saw Derek rolling his eyes. I picked a movie at random, although checking there were no zombies or ghosts in it, and handed it to Tori. I went to sit next to Derek and he put his arm around me.

"So I called Jaime. She'll be there next weekend."

Derek nodded. "We'll leave Friday after your done school."

I snuggled into him while we watched the movie, unable to wait for next week to be rid of Mark and his laughter.