Haunt: A Grim Reaper Romance (The Bound Ones Book 4)

by Tricia Barr

  “Lorelei, hide under the bed,” Dad whispered. I gave him a quizzical look, but he continued with his instructions. “No matter what you hear, don’t come out for anything. Stay hidden and stay silent.”

  “But, Dad—” I began to ask.

  “Shhh, now, hurry!” he urged.

  Afraid for an entirely new reason, I crawled under the bed, positioning myself in the center, as close to the wall as I could go. Mom and Dad were quiet, and I could now hear various noises from downstairs: lamps being broken, furniture being upturned. Someone was actually in our house. Not a ghost, but a living, breathing person. Or a handful from the sounds of it. Who are they and what do they want?

  The same heavy feet that came up the stairs headed toward my room. There was a loud stomp and then a smack, and I knew that someone had just kicked my door in.

  I sucked in air and held it as the sound of the footsteps left my room and came down the hall toward us. From where I lay under the bed, I could see the door a few feet in front of me. I stared at it, breathless, hoping to the see the shadows of feet pass us by.

  But they didn’t.

  The door flew open with another stomp, and I slammed my hands over my mouth to stifle the gasp. I watched with wide, terrified eyes as suede boots stepped into the room.

  “Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Dad said on the bed above me. “Just take what you want and go.”

  “I’ve come to deliver a message,” the male intruder said. “You don’t steal from friends.”

  Bang! My mother screamed. Bang!

  The room was suddenly dead silent, making the ringing in my ears from the gunshots impossibly loud.

  The booted feet in front of me turned around and left the room, continuing down the hall to invade the bathroom, and then the guest bedroom.

  I stayed frozen in place, rooted to my post under the bed, tears flooding down my face as I listened with anticipation to sounds around me. Somewhere inside, I knew what just happened, but my brain refused to process it. Until I could look at them, see them for myself, Mom and Dad were still alive. Like Schrodinger’s cat. Maybe if I never looked, they would live forever…

  I don’t know how long I stayed under the bed. I lay there, belly pressed against the carpet, hands clutching my mouth, for what must have been hours. Long after the intruders left. I was too afraid to face the undeniable truth.

  But I did eventually crawl out. I kept my back to the bed as I got to my feet, ignoring the blood that had found its way onto my palm as I was pulling myself across the carpet.

  “M-mom? Dad?” I asked, facing the closet.

  But there was no response. From either of them. Not even the sound of their breathing. I slowly turned around, and what I saw was scarier than any ghost had ever been. Mom and Dad, splayed on the bed with holes in their chests that had leaked blood everywhere. Mom’s eyes were open wide and vacant, staring in my direction but seeing nothing. The twinkle that had illuminated them from my first memory of her was gone.

  That was when I knew, really knew, that she was dead. So was Dad.

  And their souls hadn’t even stayed behind to say goodbye to me, to tell me they loved me one last time. Theirs were two ghosts I would have gladly beheld. I would have never let them out of my sight. But no, they had moved on, just as Clarissa’s soul had.

  The tears came back in full force, the reality of my situation finally hitting me. Mom and Dad were dead, and I would never see them again. I was alone. An orphan. And I wanted to die too.

  The sound of the front door being pushed open carried up the stairs, and I hid behind the open door of my parents’ bedroom. I followed the sounds of this new intruder, harkened as footsteps yet again made their way up the steps. The prowler went into my room first, this time sounding like he was looking for something.

  And then I realized, he was probably looking for me. The killers missed me the first time around and came back to finish the job. My earlier notion of wanting to die quickly flipped and my self-preservation instinct kicked in.

  The man grunted with exasperation after turning my room inside-out, them came into the hall. He headed toward the room I was in, and I pressed myself flat against the wall, trying to be invisible. When I saw the nose of his gun poking out from the other side of the door, my fear turned into searing hatred, and I forgot about my own safety.

  I lunged out from behind the door and pushed him with all my ten-year-old might. The man fell to the carpet, his gun flying out of his hand and landing a few feet away. I climbed on top of him before he could roll over and reach for it, shrieking the whole time.

  I beat his hard chest with my fists as he tried to grab my tiny, lightning-fast wrists.

  “You killed my parents!” I yelled with all the rage in my lungs. “You killed them! You killed them!”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” the man chuckled as he struggled to subdue me, now fully recovered from the initial surprise of my attack. “You’ll be reunited with them soon.”

  “ARGH!” I roared, seeing red as I looked into his remorseless eyes.

  This time, I did it on purpose. I wanted this man to die. I wanted him to pay for taking my parents away from me. I tapped into the sixth sense I had ignored for the last three years. I locked in on his soul with my ethereal fingers, latched onto it like a fishing hook into a guppy’s fat lip, and then yanked on it.

  The man arched his back beneath me and stretched his jaw in a terrible final gasp as the colorless echo of his soul rose involuntarily from his body. Then, like smoke in the breeze, it vanished, and I was now alone in the room with, not two, but three dead bodies.

  Or so I thought.

  “Lorelei?” a familiar voice asked from the doorway.

  I spun around, ready to kill again. But the sight of my Uncle Luca standing in the doorway paralyzed me on the spot, and I reverted to the vulnerable orphan girl.

  By the look on his face, he had seen what I had done, and he knew what it meant. I was desperately afraid that he was going to think me a freak, that he was going to reject me. He was the only family I had left.

  Uncle Luca’s face changed from an expression of disbelief and fear at what I just did to sympathy and unconditional love. He knelt down and opened his arms in invitation, and I gratefully accepted, running into his embrace and promptly soaking his shirt with my tears.

  “It’s okay, Lorelei,” Luca said as he held me. “No one is going to hurt you now.”

  After a few minutes of openly weeping, I turned back to the man I killed, hoping to find reassurance there. My eyes rested on his shoes, and a few seconds later I realized why. The man who had killed my parents had been wearing suede boots, and this dead man was wearing gray sneakers. This man was not the same man who had killed my parents. And there had been more than just one man here to begin with. Someone had sent them to do this.

  “No, it’s not okay,” I said. I turned back to Luca. “The man who shot them said this was a message. Someone else hired these men to kill us. The real killer is still out there, Luca!” I tugged at his shirt, trying to bury myself in it.

  He pulled me away and cupped my face. “We will find out who did this, and we will avenge your parents. Together. I promise.” He kissed my forehead, and for a brief moment, I felt peace…

  The dream shifted, jumping through time and space. I was no longer the newly-orphaned young girl, but a full-grown woman on a grassy field outside a castle. I turned around, and there he was. The handsome man with the desert-sand hair and the pale blue eyes.

  The man I knew like the back of my hand yet did not know at all.

  He walked across the meadow with a smile just for me. I picked up the bottom of my simple blue dress and ran to him, jumping into muscular arms that were waiting to catch me. He spun me around, making me feel weightless and free, and when he put me back down on my feet, he pulled me in for a long, passionate kiss, the kind with the power to end wars, or start them.

  The thrill of such a kiss made my heart rush, and for
a moment my eyes fluttered out of unconsciousness. But the dream was too good, I wasn’t ready to leave it yet. I fought off wakefulness and invited the dream to drag me back in.

  I wanted this kiss to last forever. With this man who was a stranger and yet the most familiar person in my world.

  Against my will, the kiss ended, and suddenly the two of us were standing in a battlefield, covered in blood-splattered armor and wielding swords against an opposing army.

  Like a detached observer, I watched through my own eyes as the two of us fought side-by-side. We were a perfect team, like a well choreographed dance. I would strike an attacker, and he would swing at a foe behind my back. He would deflect a strike aimed at me, and I would dive under his arms to stab the chest of his would-be killer. It all happened so fast, and yet we knew exactly how each other moved, could anticipate each other’s actions.

  We were good, but ultimately not good enough. An arrow sliced through the air, piercing his chainmail and burying itself in his abdomen. He stood, dumbfounded, for the longest five seconds ever, then his knees buckled, and he fell to the bloodied mud.

  I knelt over him, crying, my hands frantically butterflying over the arrow, unsure of what to do to help him. His blood gushed out and mixed with the blood of countless other fallen warriors, and there was nothing I could do stop the flow.

  He reached up to cradle the back of my head in his large hand, resigned acceptance dulling his usually bright eyes as he half-smiled up at me.

  “It’s alright, my love,” he said. “Let me go. I’ll find you in the afterlife. I promise.”

  I nodded, trying for his sake to hold in my sorrow. He moved his hand and caressed my cheek with a sweep of his thumb. Then his thumb stopped, and his hand fell away from me.

  For the thousandth time, I watched him die in my arms. I want to wake up now. I don’t want to be here anymore! Wake up!

  I forced my eyes open, relieved to see the familiar swirl in the drywall of the ceiling above me. I sat up in my bed and leaned against the headboard.

  Figures that on the night before my birthday, I would have to have the two recurring dreams I liked the least. Reliving the night of my parents’ murder in my sleep was an even worse curse than my ability to kill people. And watching that mellifluous stranger die from an arrow to the gut every few months was not much better. Apparently, death was my business.

  At least I got to kiss dream guy this time. And damn, what a kiss! Perhaps that was the universe’s birthday present to me. If so, then why couldn’t I have enjoyed a full night of the kissing and skipped all the other unpleasant melodrama? It wasn’t like I actually got to kiss any boys in my waking hours. The types of guys Luca had working for him weren’t the kind of guys I wanted to kiss, and Luca would kill any of them if they tried. This was why I needed to get away from this place. I needed a life! Hopefully Luca would be easier to talk to tonight.

  I got dressed for the day and went downstairs to see a big stack of pancakes waiting for me at the table and Carmella standing beside them with a glowing smile on her face.

  “Happy Birthday!” she exclaimed at the sight of me. I smiled back at her and let her wrap herself around me for an over-enthusiastic hug before I attacked my birthday breakfast.

  She released me and we both sat at the table, and excitement practically crackled off her like electricity off a downed power line.

  “I have a big day planned for us,” she said, all teeth and big beautiful eyes. I gave her the full attention of my eyes while my hands and mouth tore into the pancakes. “We live in the biggest party city in the country, and yet you have never gotten to experience that side of it. So today, we’re doing everything: the amusement park at Circus Circus, the roller coaster at New York-New York, the Big Jump at the Stratosphere, and, of course, shopping at the Fashion Show Mall.”

  My eyes grew wider and wider as she talked, and when she finished, my face was just about bursting with glee as surely as my mouth was bursting with syrupy deliciousness. With effort, I swallowed my mouthful. “That sounds like the best day ever! I’ve always wanted to explore the Strip! Thank you!”

  “But that’s not all,” Carmella added. “After a big day of Vegas fun, we’re also throwing you a little party tonight. Birthday cake, maybe a little champagne, dancing!”

  “Ooo, I can’t wait to get started!” I squealed. I quickly plowed through the plate of pancakes and deposited my dishes in the sink. “Come on, let’s go!” I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the door, both of us grabbing our purses off the coat rack.

  One of Luca’s drivers was waiting for us on the curb. I honestly did not like being driven around everywhere all the time. I should have gotten my driver’s license a year ago, but every time I asked Luca about driving lessons, he would shrug and say, “What for? You don’t want to drive in Vegas traffic. And we have drivers who will take you anywhere you want to go.”

  Ugh, he just did not understand. Getting a license was a teenage rite of passage. And it was something I really needed before I left to college. But there was no way I was going to bring that up right now, not until he got on board with the whole college thing.

  I decided to make a progressive action. I walked around to the driver’s door and tapped on the window. The window went down, and the driver looked at me from behind black sunglasses.

  “We won’t be needed your services today,” I said boldly. “But we will be needing the car. I’m going to drive.”

  He lifted up his sunglasses and gave me a confused look. “But Mr. del Veccio instructed me to—”

  “There’s been a change of plans,” I cut him off. “So, if you would please exit the vehicle.”

  This full-grown man in a black suit regarded me with caution, like I was someone to be feared. As far as he was concerned, I was a crime princess, and he didn’t want to displease me because that would displease the crime king, his boss. But, from the looks of it, he also did not want to be stranded on the sidewalk without a ride.

  Carmella, who had been watching this exchange with mild amusement, sauntered up. “You heard the lady.”

  The driver gave a heavy sigh and hung his head as he unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car.

  “It’s okay, you can call a cab,” Carmella said, patting him lightly on the shoulder in a false sympathy.

  I climbed into the driver’s seat as Carmella went around to the passenger’s seat.

  “Before we completely dismiss the driver, are you sure you wouldn’t just rather be chauffeured on your birthday and save a driving lesson for another day?” Carmella asked.

  “I’m seventeen today,” I said. “I’m a year behind on learning to drive. It’s now or never.”

  “Okay, it’s your day,” Carmella said with encouragement. “But first, buckle up, young lady.” She winked at me and we both pulled our belts across our torsos, clicking them into place.

  The car was already running, idling in park, so I put my left hand on the steering wheel and my right on the shifter, then looked to her for further instruction.

  “Put your foot on the break and shift into drive,” Carmella directed.

  I pulled the shifter back until it clicked next to the D.

  “Bueno, now let your foot off the break and apply very light pressure to the gas while you steer gently away from the curb,” she said.

  I lifted my right foot off the break and looked down to make sure I found the gas pedal, then returned my eyes to the road as I lightly stepped on it. Gripping the wheel with shaky hands, I turned it to the left, exhilarated and somewhat scared of being behind the wheel of such a powerful object for the first time. There was also the rebellious flutter in my gut of doing something Luca didn’t want me to do—that was always a plus.

  We glided smoothly away from the curb and into the road.

  “Muy bien, muy bien,” Carmella praised. “Now, just speed up a little bit and keep going straight.”

  I had been watching our drivers closely the last few week
s, so I thought that I would be able to emulate how they drove. I slowly increased the pressure on the gas pedal and watched my speed level out at thirty-five miles an hour, which felt super-fast from behind the wheel.

  “Okay, at the next street we are going to turn left, and don’t forget the stop sign,” she said.

  At the word “stop”, my jittery reflexes instinctively reacted, and I slammed my foot on the break. Our bodies lurched forward as the car came to a sudden halt a few houses before the stop sign. Carmella threw her hands out to brace herself, then turned wide frightened eyes at me.

  “I said stop sign,” she enunciated.

  I swallowed my embarrassment and nodded fervently. “Sorry, sorry! Just a little nervous.”

  “Aye, I know, I know, it’s okay,” Carmella said, rubbing my shoulder. “But you’re doing fine, you have nothing to be nervous about. Just remember that these pedals are sensitive, so you have to step on them slowly.”

  I nodded, and slowly drove us forward again, making sure to decelerate very slowly when we did reach the stop sign.

  “Better,” she said. “Now switch on your turn signal and look both ways before going.”

  I leaned up against the steering wheel and peered down the road to the right, then the left, and then pushed the gas as I turned the wheel to the left.

  “See, you got this, mijita,” Carmella said.

  The rest of the drive was relatively smooth. I did get a ton more antsy when we got onto Las Vegas Boulevard, where there were three lanes of traffic in each direction and cars aggressively going much faster than I wanted to, but I got through it without killing the two of us in a car accident.

  We decided to park at Circus Circus, then walk the rest of the Strip from there. The amusement park was the first thing on my agenda. I had been living in Vegas for six years now, leaving Boulder City after my parents died, but I had never really gotten to enjoy any of the perks of this city. Any time I had ever really been to the Strip was for business with Luca, and though it was beautiful at night with all the colorful flashing lights and illuminated water shows, I was very much looking forward to experiencing it in the day time.