Elias releases me like I’ve scalded him, and I land on my ass in the wet snow. He moves away, visibly shaking with fear. After another look around the empty area beyond the reach of the woods, he clears his throat. “Well, go on. Git inside then.”
I don’t wait to be told twice, already scrambling to my feet before he finishes his sentence. The moment my boots hit the wooden steps, I rush past him into the safety of the house. Inside, it’s hot and stuffy, but it does nothing to warm the chill crawling underneath my skin. The door creaks shut, the lock clicking too loudly in the otherwise silent room. I cross my arms, attempting to rub the feeling back into them and relieve the tension coiling in my limbs. My teeth chatter, and my eyes scan the room, trying to locate the source of my uneasiness. “If I couldjust borrow your phone, I’ll have Pop come get me straight away. I don’t mean to be a bother.”
“It followed you here,” Elias hisses, ignoring my request. His eyes narrow, lasering in as he stalks toward me. The thud of his heavy footsteps hit the wooden floor in time with the hammering of my pulse. “It’s marked you now, tainted you.”
“What has?” I question cautiously, attempting to swallow, but my saliva turns to sand at the back of my throat. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, I swear.”
“Oh, I think ya do. Saw the look in your eyes the moment I spotted ya.” His low timbre becomes a snarl, and he grips the gun swinging in front of him. “I can’t have ya bringing it back here.”
“I won’t,” I plead, backing away from him. “I promise, I just want to go home. I’ll never come back. I’ll tell Pop to never bring me back. Please!”
“Can’t be takin’ the chance,” he chuckles, only a foot away. He rubs a hand under his chin, and his lips distort into a toothy smile. “I’d be a hypocrite after all.”
Blood crystallizes in my veins, rendering me immobile. My alarm transforms into full-blown panic. My vision swirls, swaying on my feet as I take another step back. “Please,” I whimper. My back hits the wall, making picture frames rattle beside me.
“Ya know, your pop gave me a real hard time about Cyrus.” Elias rolls his lips together, wetting them. He smacks them loudly, the noise wet and revolting. His putrid breath hits my face in toxic puffs. “Didn’t know his own offspring was marked too. Thought he was better than me, better than Ezra. Now look at ‘em.”
Cyrus. His name is a beacon of hope, a topic of conversation to distract his father and possibly free myself from the trap I ranstraight into. “A hard time about what?” I question hesitantly, like I’m asking a snake to not bite me. “What did Cyrus do?”
“It wanted him,” Elias explains, slumping down on the couch. He lifts a glass of whiskey off the nearby TV tray. “Thatthing. Out there in the woods. Marked him.”
His words come out disjointed, like he’s recalling a story but only telling half of it out loud. He takes a sip of whisky, slurping loudly then belching. I creep along the wall, shuffling closer to the front door as he stays lost in his memories.
“Cyrus!” Elias shouts, making me jump back against the wall again. “Boy tried to escape his fate too, but there ain’t nowhere to run where it cain’t find you.”
“What happened to him?” I’m so close to getting the answers I came for, but the knowledge won’t do me any good if I can’t get out of here. If I can keep him talking, I can keep moving closer to the door.
“I shot him,” Elias spits out, snapping his head to me. His dark eyes lock on me, blazing with contempt even as they fill with tears. “I had to give it what it wants!”
Elias folds over, dropping his head into his hands. I seize the moment to charge toward the door, sprinting through the pain in my fatigued muscles. The coolness of the metal lock touches my skin, but it fights me when I try to turn it against the misaligned door frame. It jiggles uselessly in my hands while clumsy footsteps close in behind me. I grab the door handle with both hands, shaking it as I scream at the top of my lungs. “Help!”
A fist clenches around the collar of my shirt, cutting off my pleas as I’m pulled back. My fingers stretch to keep a hold on the door, but a strip of fabric tears free from my shirt, and I fall to the floor. Elias stands over me, the piece of shirt still in hand, straddling my legs. He chuckles darkly, leaning his head back to let out a deep belly laugh. Cyrus’ face flickers in and out like an overlay in front of Elias’, reminding me of what his father hasdone. A burst of rage swells within me. I kick my leg up, nailing his groin with my shin. The impact forces him to tumble over. As he wheezes, I roll to my knees and crawl to the door. I grab the doorknob again, using it to pull myself to my feet. This time, the lock turns easily, unlocking just as a gust of hot breath grazes the back of my neck.
“You little fuckin’ bitch,” Elias groans, fisting my hair on the back of my head. My scalp burns with hot pinpricks of pain. I cry out, twisting against his grip. He yanks my head back, bellowing with rage as he slams my head into the door. Pain sears down my body, forcing it to go limp as my vision fades to black.
22
CYRUS
If you care about her, you won’t be just another thing haunting her dreams.
Roux’s parting words spin in circles around my mind. Whatever way she meant it, she’s right. Even when I’m not haunting her physically, the memory of me is. I can’t take away the pain I’ve caused, the damage of my unexplained absence. I should be blaming my father, yet I can’t help but think if I never came back to begin with, this all would have ended differently.
Every time she speaks of me, another piece splinters off, splitting her apart as she desperately tries to hold herself together. I tried to protect her from the secrets—burdens never hers to bear. Instead, I left her to hold them alone. The disconnect to her family’s past, her memories of me, they both torment her more than any phantom. Am I just another ghost swirling beside them inside her mind?
I knock a picture frame off the living room wall. It crashes to the floor, glass shattering in all directions. My old man barely twitches, fast asleep on the couch. His snores echo off the walls in an annoying cadence, reminding me I’m no more a bother to him dead than I was alive. When he finally stumbles to bed, he’ll assume he knocked it down himself in a drunken stupor.It’s hard to haunt someone who has no recollection of their own actions. I could crash through the entire house, destroying it, and he’d assume he’d done it in a blacked out fit of rage.
“Stay away from me,” my father whines, still asleep but stirring restlessly. His body jerks from side to side, struggling against invisible restraints. Drool trails from the corner of his mouth, dribbling off his chin. “I said git away from me. I don’t have what you want.”
I move closer to him, close enough to whisper in his ear. His nightmares have gotten more frequent. Each time he cries out in his sleep, I play into it, enhancing the terror he’s seeing behind his eyelids. “What do you think I want?”
“Take the girl,” he gasps, choking on the saliva pooling in his mouth. “Not me. You got the boy, take the girl!”
“What girl?” I ask, surprised by a new response. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t say anything. “Whatgirl, Elias?”
“Please,” he begs, writhing on the couch. “Not me, not me.Her.”
“Who?” I’m practically shouting in his ear now, ready to shake the answer from him.
