But she does.
Her fingertips rest on my cheekbones, shocking me with a jolt of electricity that sinks into my skull, making my bones vibrate. It’s almost painful.
“I know you talked to my son today,” she says softly. “It’s too bad that you’re already a taken woman. You could have ended up with him. Destiny is a beautiful thing when you let it happen.”
I’m not a witch.
She smiles sweetly, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“No. You’re not. But you could be. Perry, you can be anything you want to be.” She leans in to my ear. The smell of the ocean overwhelms my senses. “You have so much power inside you,” she whispers, her breath causing my ear to freeze. “You don’t even know what to do with it. What you’re really capable of.”
She pulls back and her other hand goes to the other side of my face, holding me. “I could show you if you let me. I could show you everything that you can be. Don’t you want to know what it’s like? To have the world at your fingertips? To make people love you?”
People do love me.
She frowns at that, then laughs like music, pressing her fingers into my cheekbones harder. “They do. I forget about that. That you’re already so lucky. Almost seems to be such a waste, for someone like you to have everything to begin with.”
I swallow thickly, my nerves icing over. I didn’t always.
“No, you didn’t,” she muses with a smirk. “Don’t you wonder how that was? How you went from having nothing to having everything?”
I don’t want to mention all I’ve lost along the way, but she knows I’m thinking it anyway.
“We all go through loss, Perry,” she says. “But what determines who you are inside is what you do with that loss. For people like me, like you, like us, we can use that loss to make us stronger.”
A wash of sadness comes over her eyes, her fingers trailing down to my lips where they rest gently. My eyes go round. I suck in a cold breath.
“Maybe it’s not too late for us,” she says. “Maybe there’s still time.”
Time for what?
She just smiles and leans in.
Oh my god.
She fucking kisses me.
Her lips send shockwaves through my skin, liquid nitrogen filling my body, seconds from cracking like ice.
Samantha pulls away teasingly, glancing up at me through her dark lashes.
“Don’t you want your baby to be safe?” A grin slowly spreads across her face.
Then she vanishes into thin air.
I’m too enraptured and confused to move, to make a noise. I feel my brain come back online, feel the cold burning away from my skin, my muscles twitching.
“Fuck! Fucking hell!” Dex yells from the bedroom, and before I can move, there’s a crash, and then he’s throwing the door open and running out in his underwear, his hands at his head.
I’m still too stunned to react, everything feeling underwater.
“Perry?” he says to me, looking up just as a crow flies out of the bedroom toward us. “Holy fuck,” he swears, ducking just in time. “There’s a fucking bird in here!”
I just stare wide-eyed at the crow, even as Fat Rabbit wakes up and starts barking.
Without thinking, I head to the balcony doors and open them.
The crow flies right on through into the rainy night.
I watch for a few moments as it flies away, then I close the windows.
Dex is watching me uneasily.
“Did you know? I woke up and you were gone and there was a bird in your place,” he says. “The fucker looked at me and then started flying around the room, trying to peck my damn brains out.”
“I…” I begin, feeling everything drain out of me like I’m losing my dream. “I got up to get water and…” I try to swallow. “I think Samantha was here?”
He goes still. “Are you serious?”
I nod, pressing my fingers to my lips.
Did she fucking kiss me?
Dex comes over to me, grabbing my hand. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I don’t know I…I think she was trying to talk to me. She wasn’t trying to scare me. She looked…younger.” I close my eyes, trying to concentrate but it’s impossible. It just vanishes like dust. “She looked beautiful.”
His eyes narrow at that. “Was the demon with her?” he asks in a low voice.
“No. I don’t think so. It wasn’t as…scary.”
He’s studying me closely, trying to see through any lies.
I give him an empty smile. “I’m not trying to downplay it. I just know she didn’t hurt me. She didn’t want to hurt me. That’s all.”
He gives his head a shake, putting his hand at the back of my neck. “That’s all? Baby, this is already too much. First the gym, now she’s in our fucking apartment? This is Abby all over again.”
“No, this is nothing like Abby.”
“Maybe not this time, but what about next time?”
“I think maybe Atlas is right, that she doesn’t want to hurt me. She just wants something from me.”
Or something for me.
But I don’t voice that last part.
“I don’t fucking like this,” he says, practically growling, his grip growing protectively tight. “I should have been able to protect you. You should have woken me up.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“But you have to next time, okay? You have to. Promise me.”
“I promise.” A beat passes, my chest growing tight. “You think there’s going to be a next time?”
He closes his eyes and sighs, pulling me into his chest and wrapping his arms around me. “I hope not.”
That night I fall back asleep in his arms. He doesn’t even give me an inch.
And I’m remembering the last thing Samantha said to me.
Don’t you want your baby to be safe?
Sixteen
A week passes without Samantha returning.
Things almost feel like normal again. I go out for lunch and drinks with Rebecca (sans Lucinda), and then we go shopping for her upcoming holiday party at her house renovating show. She invites Dex and me, saying the more the merrier, plus Dean and Seb will be there too. I guess the show has a big budget and an open bar, so why not? Plus I want to see how Rebecca is with her sexy co-star, Claire. Of course with Dean there, this might lead to some drama, but it might be the perfect distraction from my life.
I also finally got my IUD out, which felt like a momentous (albeit uncomfortable) occasion. Naturally we’ve been having sex non-stop since then, despite me reminding Dex that I only have a few days a month in which I can actually conceive. He doesn’t seem to care, of course. And I’m not complaining either.
As for Atlas, we haven’t talked to him since we last saw him. There’s been no point.
But we also haven’t been back to the house.
Honestly, it’s been weighing on me heavily. The fact that Max is still there, that we haven’t gone back for him. After everything he sacrificed for us, we’re just biding our time. Dex will say it’s because he wants to keep me as far from the house as possible after Samantha showed up in our kitchen.
But also, it’s because we don’t have anything to report.
Rose never got back to me. She’s on Facebook, but she unfriended me long ago so I’ve got nothing much to go on. It’s frustrating as hell because I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. It’s not like we can call Maximus up on the phone and let him know the score. We have no choice but to go to the house if we want to connect.
Which is what we’re doing tonight.
I know that it’s inviting trouble into our lives, and I know Dex isn’t happy about this, but something inside me tells me that we need to do this.
There’s something even deeper inside that tells me I might see Samantha again. That I’ll get answers about what she really wants from me.
You see, it has all come back. Every moment of when she walked out of the bathroom looking like an
angel, every word she said, the way she felt when she kissed me.
Like ice.
So as much as it’s been a relief that I haven’t seen her, I’m also…missing it.
I know that sounds crazy.
My next appointment with Dr. Leivo isn’t for a bit, but if she could hear me today, she would probably come to the same conclusion. That I’m slowly losing my mind. Not quite in the way when I was possessed by Abby. In that, I had no choice. I was taken over. No, this is more like…invited possession.
Or maybe it’s obsession.
Which is scary in itself.
“So, what are we going to tell the big guy?” Dex asks me as we sit in the Highlander outside the house of horrors. “We tried our best, sorry?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
He muses over that for a moment, staring at me in the darkness of the car.
For once it’s a clear night and the stars are out, but it also means the temperature is dipping close to freezing. I want to hurry up and get in the house, because the longer Dex stares at me, the more anxious I get.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” he eventually asks.
I nod, teeth chattering. “Uh huh. Guess I’ve missed the guy.”
He raises a brow, not amused. “I don’t want this to be a mistake.”
“We have to go in there,” I remind him.
“You don’t have to. You can stay here.”
“Like hell I’m staying here with you in there alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s stayed away.” He licks his lips, twisting in the seat to face me. “Right? She’s been gone for a week. If you go back in there, you could be inviting her back into our lives. Perry, I know you think last time everything was fine but I don’t believe it for a fucking second. She’s a witch.”
“Witches aren’t bad.”
“I’m not saying that witches are bad. Or modern paganism is bad. They aren’t. It isn’t. As you know, I think the more that we have people to push back against the church and all their control in this country, the better. But with all sects of people, you’re going to get some bad fucking seeds. And a bad witch is probably the worst of the lot because she has power, and that power can’t be trusted. She can’t be trusted. She didn’t hurt you last time, but that doesn’t mean she won’t next time. And if what we’re doing is inviting that…”
I put my hand in his palm and give it a squeeze. “We’re going straight to the basement, straight to Max. Then we’re leaving. Okay?”
No. You want to find Samantha.
I push that intrusive thought away.
He sighs, squeezing my hand back. “Then I guess we should leave the camera behind this time.” He turns his head, eyeing the camera bag in the backseat.
“Dex,” I warn him. “Don’t even.”
The last thing I want to do is film this. That’s for another time, for something else entirely.
I get out of the car, and he joins me by my side, grabbing my hand.
We walk toward the house and I notice things I never noticed before, like the flowers in the beds that are still blooming despite being the end of November, the new paint job on the exterior. Even the windows are no longer boarded up. In fact, now that I think back, they weren’t boarded up when we were here last week.
It’s like the house is getting…younger.
I’m not quite sure what that means.
Dex doesn’t even go for the key under the mat this time. He just puts his hand on the handle and it opens for us.
We exchange an anxious glance and then step inside. At least we both have strong flashlights, and I have backups in my purse.
The door closes gently, but it sounds like it’s sealing us in.
It’s dark, deadly quiet, and we’re alone.
I expected Maximus to come greet us, but then again he doesn’t know we’re here.
Dex raises a finger to his lips, motioning for me to be quiet, as if I’m suddenly going to start chatting about the weather, and we slowly creep across the hall, shining the light in the dark corners as we go.
Then I stop dead.
I gasp.
Down at the end of the hall, coming out of the cavernous darkness of the dining room, is a man.
Lying still on the floor.
Who the hell is that? Dex asks me in my head.
I have no idea. It’s hard to see from where we are. The man is lying at the top of the two steps that lead up into the dining room. The room still has that effect of being a black hole, of swallowing light, so it’s hard to make out anything except his head and torso, his arms stretched in front of him, hands dangling over the edge of the step.
For a moment I fear it’s Maximus and he’s dead. Again. But the more I stare, the more I can see greying hair. It’s not him.
But who is it?
We should go to straight to the basement, I tell Dex.
Of course my fucking husband starts walking down the hall toward the person.
“Dex!” I hiss at him.
And then the man lifts his head from the floor.
Looks right at us.
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.
Dex goes still while the man looks from me to him and back again. In the shadows he looks gaunt, his eyes round and black like a shark.
Then he starts to move.
Pulling himself down the steps.
Thump.
Thump.
And that’s when I realize he really is just a torso.
The bottom half of him is just a bloody trail, legs missing.
Probably chopped up.
“It’s Victor Poe,” I manage to say, my body starting to shake in fear. “Dex, come on.”
Dex seems mesmerized, watching as Victor pulls himself along the floor, coming for us. He’s slow at the moment, but there’s no telling when he might pick up the pace.
I quickly stride over to Dex and grab his arm, pulling him to me, just as Victor lets out a raspy growl, teeth snapping.
Holy shit.
He’s moving faster now.
Finally Dex snaps out of it, and we hurry back down the hall and down the stairs to the basement, taking them two at a time until we get to the closed door to the smoking room.
I bang on it as lightly as possible. “Max. Max, it’s us. Hurry up and let us in.”
No answer. I press my ear to the door as Dex tries the handle.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. What if Max isn’t here? What if Victor comes after us?
“What do we do?” I ask Dex.
“What I do best,” he says, and with that canned remark I know he’s about to kick the door down.
But before he can do that, the door swings open.
“Max!” I cry out as he appears—same red hair, same flannel.
“How long have you been out there?” he asks us as we push past him into the room.
Dex waves his finger at the door. “Long enough. You might want to lock that. We ran into Victor. The rest of him this time.”
“Ah,” he says, running his hand over his jaw. “He’s a terrifying fucker, ain’t he?” He closes the door and locks it.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Dex says, sitting down on a leather armchair and trying to catch his breath.
“I’m so sorry we weren’t by sooner,” I tell Max. “How are you holding up? You look good.”
Maximus chuckles. “Pretty fly for a dead guy? I’m doing as good as I can be. Have to keep reminding myself that it’s better than Hell. And it is. I can just sit here and…exist. Or not exist. It’s hard to figure that out. Either way, it feels like you were only gone a day if that helps.”
“It does,” I tell him, perching my butt on the arm of Dex’s chair. “It’s been a week. I hate knowing that you’re in here.”
“Better than the alternative, sweetheart.”
“What do you even do to pass the time in here?” Dex asks. Then he looks disgusted. �
��Wait. Don’t answer that.”
Maximus chuckles at that. “As I said, time doesn’t have much relevance here. It passes with ease. And anyway, I still have my memories that I can live in. The good memories. Of my life before. I just skip over the last…how many years was it that I was gone again?”
“Three,” I tell him.
“That’s a lot,” he says with a sigh. “So what’s changed in three years? Anything I should know?”
Dex snorts. “Well, Donald Trump is now the President, and a lot of crazy fuckers worship this incel named Q who lives in his parents’ basement.” He grins at him. “I bet Hell isn’t looking so bad, is it now?”
Max’s eyes go wide and he looks to me for confirmation. I nod.
“Guess I’ll have to take my chances,” Maximus says, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he clears his throat. “Speaking of things changing…did you manage to talk to Rose?”
My heart sinks. “No,” I say softly. “I’m sorry. I called her and texted but no reply. I don’t even know if it’s her number and I can’t reach her on Facebook. She unfriended me years ago.”
He frowns. “Why would she do that?”
I swallow uneasily. “Because I had to be the one to call her and tell her that you died. And after that…she blamed me. Blamed us. Said that if I hadn’t contacted you, if you hadn’t gone to New York you wouldn’t have died. That you’d still be with her.”
His face falls. “Shit. I’m sorry, Perry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him.
“Technically it is,” he says, walking across the room and staring up at the golden windows that line the top of the wall facing the street. The light causes his hair to glow like a flame. “I knew what I was doing, though.”
He folds his hands behind his back and closes his eyes, keeping his face tipped up to the light. “That’s the funny thing about death. Even when you come back from it, you’re still left behind. Everyone else has moved on. The world keeps going. I have no idea what the heck I’m going to do when I get out of here. Makes me think that there’s really nothing for me to go back to. Or no one.”
I look down at Dex who is watching his friend with sorrow in his eyes.
“You can go back to Rose. Find her,” Dex says. “Just because she’s mad at us, doesn’t mean she will be with you. I assume it would be the opposite.”
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