I pace across Cass's worn floorboards, each step making my head throb. The sun streams through gauzy curtains, reminding me I should be either face-down in my bed or hunting a killer. Instead, I'm wearing a track in my best friend's carpet while my recently resurrected witness channel-surfs on her couch.

Ethan clicks through stations with mechanical precision, but his eyes keep darting to me when he thinks I'm not looking. The alleyway incident hangs between us like a lead weight.

The electric kettle in the kitchen reaches its crescendo. Cass should be downstairs running her shop, not up here making tea for the undead. The thought of her losing business because of my mess adds another layer to my guilt sandwich.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out, stopping mid-pace. "About the alley. About making you..." My hands flutter uselessly, trying to describe the indescribable.

Ethan mutes the TV. "Make me your zombie puppet?"

"What happened?" Cass emerges from the kitchen balancing three mugs. "You skipped that part between 'morgue escape' and 'hiding at my place.'"

I sink into an armchair, accepting a mug of what smells like Cass's "special occasion" Earl Grey. "We were being followed. Maybe. Probably. I made him hide under a van."

"She didn't make me hide," Ethan corrects, his fingers drumming against his mug. "She commanded me. One second I'm standing there thinking 'no way am I crawling under that filthy van' and the next..." He swallows hard. "It was like someone pulled my strings."

Cass perches on the coffee table, her expression carefully neutral. "What did it feel like? Exactly?"

"Like fog in my brain." Ethan stares into his tea. "But the worst part was when she told me to be quiet. My voice just... vanished. Not like I chose not to speak - like someone hit my mute button. I couldn't make a sound if my life depended on it." He pauses, then adds, "Though I guess my life doesn't really depend on anything anymore, does it?"

"Don't." I grip my mug tighter. "Don't joke about that."

"Why not? It's literally the only thing keeping me from completely freaking out right now." His laugh holds an edge of hysteria. "That, and the fact that apparently I make an excellent ventriloquist dummy."

Cass shoots me a look that clearly says 'fix this.' But I don't know how. I've spent eight years hiding my power to bring back the dead, and now I've somehow leveled up to full-on mind control? The universe has a sick sense of humor.

I watch Ethan's leg bounce up and down, each movement sending ripples through Cass's ancient couch. My stomach churns. This kid didn't sign up for any of this - he's supposed to be worrying about deadlines and rent, not dealing with being my personal Lazarus project. But he's also my only lead to whatever psycho turned his friends into modern art.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Do you remember anything else about that night?" Cass asks, her voice gentle in the way she usually reserves for skittish cats and first-time book buyers.

Ethan's leg keeps bouncing, like a nervous metronome counting down my rising guilt. "Just the lights, flashes of them, like in the old movies when their taking pictures. And that shadow..." His face scrunches. "It moved wrong, you know? Like, nothing was moving, but it did. After that..." He makes a popping sound with his mouth. "Game over."

"I'm so sorry about your friends," Cass says.

"Barely knew them, honestly. Just moved in last week." His shoulders lift in a jerky shrug. "But they seemed cool. Let me crash there when my lease ended early. I pledged and became official pretty quick. Better than some rando from Craigslist, right?" His laugh comes out hollow, leg still jittering like he's had ten espressos.

"Stop fidgeting," I snap, my nerves finally fraying.

Ethan goes statue-still, his leg freezing mid-bounce. The silence that follows feels like a slap.

"Oh god." My tea sloshes as I set it down too hard. "I didn't mean to- I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking-"

"Well, this is fun." Ethan's voice sounds forced-casual, but his eyes are wide. "Always wanted to know what it felt like to be a mannequin. Such an enriching afterlife experience."

"Is it like before?" Cass asks, leaning forward. "In the alley?"

"Identical." Ethan stares at his leg like it belongs to someone else. "I could try to move it all day - nothing's happening until she gives the all-clear."

I want to apologize again, but what's the point? Sorry I accidentally turned you into my personal marionette doesn't exactly cover it. Instead, I find myself saying, "You can move now," and immediately hate how much it sounds like a command rather than permission.

Ethan's leg resumes its nervous dance, but now there's something deliberate about it, like he's proving he can.

Without a word Cass stands up and walks over to her coffee table. She lists one side slightly and begins to drag it. I stand and help Cass drag it across the hardwood floor, the legs squeaking in protest. "Want to tell me why we're rearranging your furniture at-" I check my watch and remember I should have been asleep hours ago, "-whatever time it is?"

"Because," Cass grunts, shoving an armchair against the wall, "you need to figure this out. Both of you do." She straightens, brushing dust from her hands. "How the commands work, what triggers them, if there's a range limit - all of it."

"Like psychic guinea pig trials?" Ethan pipes up from the couch. "Should I be charging hourly for this?"

I shoot him a look. "You're dead. Your billing days are over."

"Rude. I prefer 'financially challenged due to mortality complications.'"

Cass puts her hands on her hips and looks around at the extra space in the living room. "This should help give you both some room." She then looks me in the eye. "Make sure you get a handle on this, if something happens out there and some shadow is coming for others, the last thing you need is making a mistake with this ability and getting yourself in trouble..." She pauses, not saying what I know what she's thinking. I cant bring myself back to life.

Cass starts toward the stairs, pausing to point at us both like we're misbehaving students. "Keep it down up here. These walls are thinner than my profit margins, and I really don't need Mrs. Chen next door spreading rumors about zombie fight club."

"Hey!" Ethan calls after her. "How come you get to make the zombie jokes?"

"Because it's my bookstore," she tosses back, already halfway down. "And I'm not the one who spent the morning as a human puppet."

The door clicks shut behind her, leaving me alone with my accidental resurrection and a growing sense that this is either going to go very right or spectacularly wrong. Knowing my luck, probably the latter.

"So," Ethan says, his forced cheerfulness not quite hiding the nervous edge in his voice. "Should I stretch first? Do some warm-up exercises? I don't want to pull my hamstring."

I close my eyes and count to ten. It's going to be a long morning.