River of Ghosts (Haunted Florida Book 2)
Page 18
It was done.
I rushed to Kane’s side, guilty for not having tended to him sooner. Always with the guilt. I would live with it my entire life, wear it like a badge of honor. “I thought you were dead.”
“Go. Burn this motherfucker to the ground.”
I pulled up his shoulders. “Let’s get you out of here first.”
He groaned through intense pain. “I’m done.” His breath was laced with finality.
“You’re not done. Let’s go.” Me pulling and tugging at two hundred pounds of solid muscle did not go well, and Kane’s head lolled to the side. I lifted his face and tapped his cheeks. “Hey…hey. No, you don’t. Kane…”
There was no reply.
I did it all. I pumped at his chest, took off my blouse and pressed it into the bleeding wound of his torso, happy patchwork colors compressing death. I pumped his chest again and blew air into his trachea. Nothing.
I was surprised to find myself resting my forehead against his chest and sobbing pitifully, as though I’d known him personally. I hadn’t. But what it had taken most people to learn about another in a whole lifetime, I’d learned about Kane in two days. If I ever got off this island, I would remember this man as my friend.
I cried for what could’ve been.
I could have been friends with Kane and Eve. I could’ve moved to Atlanta and started a new life. I could’ve gotten to know their adult kids. I might’ve worked in production, and they could’ve taught me things about myself that I never knew. But it wouldn’t happen now. And their kids would never see their parents again.
Holding him against my chest, I raised my face and screamed into the newly risen sunlight. How dare the sun dawn on this mess, revealing the carnage and chaos we’d fought so hard to avoid through the night? It came anyway. It came because some forces were not to be messed with, and Villegas House was one of them.
The warnings had all been true.
I breathed in deep and touched Kane’s face. If Eve were here, I’d touch hers too. I’d link her fingers entwined with her husband’s and back away slowly, leaving them to rest together, saying my goodbyes and offering pitiful excuses of regret. I was sorry, sorry for having accepted their offer. Sorry for having brought them here. Sorry for believing that things might go better than expected, that good might prevail over evil.
I’d been naïve.
Five people were dead.
Grabbing the backpack, I gave the dead one last look, offered a silent prayer, even for Sharon, who I could forgive—she had not been in her right mind—and backed away. I lit the walls on fire, the door, the handrail before descending the stairs, heard the booming shouts of Captain Bellamy, telling me not to go in his wordless language of hatred. His job was not done, not until we were all dead, and as much as I felt the pull to stay and let myself burn in this house along with the rest of the team, out of guilt, out of fate—I wouldn’t.
Linda wouldn’t want me to.
Kane and Eve wouldn’t want me to either.
I would finish what we started, one way or another.
While the house slowly burned from the dry inside out toward the water-soaked exterior, I worked on the raft, pulled together pieces and tied them with electrical cable. I sliced the outer plastic coating with Kane’s knife and used the thinner wiring to make the frame lighter. Every now and then, I’d look up and watch the plumes of smoke climb into the air, flesh and bone and souls rising up with it. My only hope was that the smoke would alert local gladesmen or tribe members or researchers working out in the Kahayatle.
Anyone who otherwise might not think to come this way.
If I got out of here alive, then Kane and Eve’s efforts would not have been in vain.
It took two days for the bulk of the soaking wet house to burn, the same number of days it took me to finish building the raft. I tore planks of wood off the burning house with bare hands, tied more planks together with cables and dry palmetto leaves, drank rainwater, slept with one eye open, braided dry cypress fronds for more rope, and tied plastic ponchos to the underside to create an extra layer of protection against water seepage. I found several good sticks for wading through the grass and sucked blood from my shredded hands.
On the third day, the house burned to the ground.
Charred black remains smoldered in the heat.
When police would ask why I’d burned the house down, I wouldn’t be able to say it was my strategy for breaking a curse so I’d tell them it was my only defense against wildlife. Because of the fire, the stench of rotting flesh had shifted to cooked flesh, and the gators had moved back into the water in search of cooler temperatures. This was the only way I was able to drag the raft into the river.
A girl had to do what a girl had to do.
Kneeling on the raft, holding onto the wading stick, I watched the last of the house burn down. Two center walls finally collapsed in what had been the living room, and the orange, scorched pieces erupted into columns of ashes and smoke.
Goodbye, Kane.
Goodbye, Eve.
Goodbye, Linda and Quinn.
Later, Sharon.
Quinn had long been digested, and BJ—God only knew where that POS coward had gone. Watching the house burn, I drifted away slowly, knowing there would be peace on this land from now on. With no one to disturb it, no crazy humans to set curses or go mad in solitary confinement, nature would soon reclaim her. Tranquility would once again reign supreme.
The blackened remains drifted out of sight, and the ghosts of all who’d walked this land waded with me. The production crew, the avian expert, Rutherford, his wife, Elena, the man who’d raped her and fathered Sharon, the assistants, my grandfather, even my Uncle Bob as a child.
They followed me down the river.
Past the fields of sawgrass.
Past the mangrove tunnels and rows of anhingas stretching their wings to dry in the morning sun.
We passed the upturned wreckage of the airboat. Of course it would spill. BJ didn’t know how to maneuver the skiff, and he’d had the balls to take off and maroon us during a rainstorm, no less. Of course karma got him. Gators did too. There was no way for an inexperienced man like him to survive this. I stopped and tried to recover items, but the boat was upturned, and heavy tech equipment boxes were of no use to me on my lightweight raft anyway.
I had zero energy. I had to lie down.
The sun beat down on my shirtless body. Floating through the morning brightness and heat in just my bra, I heard my little brother’s airy voice telling me to hang on just a little while longer—I was almost there and shouldn’t give up now. In fact, he’d already alerted Uncle Bob in a dream. He and other tribe members had been notified of a non-brushfire blaze and were on their way up the river.
Okay, Billie. I love you.
I felt a deep sense of peace but also sadness. What messes we humans made.
I thought of Captain Bellamy, of the Spanish witch who wouldn’t go down without a fight who’d cursed him to this very last day. Me, in another life, I was certain. We were all connected in a cycle of life and death. I wondered if the captain was with me now, too. After all, a captain never abandons his ship, and this raft had been fashioned partly from his own vessel, the Vanquish.
They say that on dark nights when the moon is only a sliver, you can see still see the doomed pirate ship sailing along, searching for a way out, its ghostly crew trapped in a prison of watery grass… I looked up and saw the waning quarter moon. I laughed at the irony.
History repeated itself.
Only Bellamy wasn’t the captain now.
I was.
Acknowledgments
No book would be complete without acknowledging the fine people who made it possible. I would like to thank Iretta Tiger, LaVonne Rose, Houston Cypress, and Mercedes Osceola of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes of South Florida for contributing insight into native Everglades culture and language.
Thank you also to my family for their undying patien
ce, laughter, and love. And to my husband, Curtis Sponsler, not only for keeping me fed and alive while I wrote late into the night, but for designing this badass pirate ship cover. Seriously, I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing artist and best friend. Lastly, I thank my MacBook Pro for taking a keyboard beating these last 7 years and allowing me to write roughly 40 stories for readers and clients alike. Please don’t die on me yet.
Book 1 – Haunted Florida
When Ellie Whitaker leaves her dead-end job and ex behind to spread her grandmother's ashes in tropical paradise, the last thing she expected was to face more ghosts of the past.
But darkness lurks inside her grandmother's former home turned resort. Ellie's presence stirs up its energies. As a hurricane creeps closer to the island, she must hurry to discover long-buried truths.
About her treasure-hunting grandfather's death in 1951. About the curse her grandmother left behind. About the innkeeper next door with an evil secret.
And the spectral visions she keeps having. Some there to help her. And some to make sure Ellie becomes a ghostly resident of haunted Key West forever.
Book 3 – Haunted Florida
"Some homes want to be miserable."
A ghostly woman in white. A haunted Victorian home. Witchcraft and Santería from Miami's darker side.
When a mysterious old gentleman enters Kaylin Suarez's trendy new age shop, she hopes he's there to buy incense, some sage, maybe a nice rose quartz pendulum for his wife. Instead, the man pleads for help getting rid of "La Dama de Blanco," a ghostly woman in bloody white dress who has recently begun haunting his 100-year-old Coconut Grove estate.
A newbie witch, Kaylin decides to handle the spirit herself instead of deferring to her paranormal community. When her rituals and spells uncover terrifying secrets hidden in the walls of the estate, Kaylin realizes La Dama de Blanco is only the beginning of the haunted home's evil legacy.
About the Author
GABY TRIANA is the bestselling author of Island of Bones, Cakespell, Wake the Hollow, Summer of Yesterday, and many more, as well as 40+ ghostwritten novels for best-selling authors. Gaby has published with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Entangled, won an IRA Teen Choice Award, ALA Best Paperback Award, and Hispanic Magazine’s Good Reads of 2008. She writes about ghosts, haunted places, and abandoned locations. When not obsessing over Halloween, Christmas, or the paranormal, she's taking her family to Disney World, the Grand Canyon, LA, New York, or Key West. Gaby dreams of living in the forests of New England one day but for the meantime resides in sunny Miami with her boys, Michael, Noah, and Murphy, her husband Curtis, their dog, Chloe, and four cats—Daisy, Mickey Meows, Paris, and the reformed thug/shooting survivor, Bowie.
Visit Gaby at www.GabyTriana.com and subscribe to her newsletter. Also, check out her blog at: www.WitchHaunt.com.
Also by Gaby Triana
Horror:
ISLAND OF BONES
RIVER OF GHOSTS
CITY OF SPELLS
Paranormal Young Adult:
WAKE THE HOLLOW
Contemporary Young Adult:
CAKESPELL
SUMMER OF YESTERDAY
RIDING THE UNIVERSE
THE TEMPTRESS FOUR
CUBANITA
BACKSTAGE PASS
Author Links
Website: www.GabyTriana.com
Blog: www.WitchHaunt.com
Facebook: Gaby Triana
Instagram: @gabytriana
Twitter: @gabytriana
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Book 1 – Island of Bones
Book 3 – City of Spells
About the Author
Also by Gaby Triana