“Luca!” I call his name out, hoping he’ll hear me inside. Opening my mouth to scream again, the fire ignited, throwing a gigantic ball of fire into the air and knocking me backward onto my ass.
In seconds, I hear the back door slamming against the wall as Luca runs toward me, Weeks on his heels.
“What the fuck happened?” he screams while skidding toward me, his eyes on me, but his attention on our surroundings.
“I’m not sure. I turned on the fire pit; it smelled so bad. And then the fire came on and this.” I motion to myself.
I watch Weeks as he looks down into the pit. It’s not huge, but big enough for what we needed.
Luca bends down, helping me onto my feet, his eyes assessing me. They roam my body. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my back hurts. And at that moment, I get the flashback of me falling onto the altar, hitting the same spot that is now screaming at me. I try to straighten my back, but the pain shoots up my spine.
Needing to sit, I let them figure out what the hell just happened as I easily lower myself onto the chair.
I hear them talking, but can’t make out what they’re saying. Weeks points to something while Luca uses his phone light to see. They walk toward me. “Go check the cameras,” I hear Luca whisper to Weeks before he disappears back into the house.
“Cameras?” I question Luca as he sits in the opposite chair from me.
“That,” he says while pointing to the fire pit, “shouldn’t have malfunctioned.” He has worry etched on his face.
I sit up straighter, ignoring the pain. “What do you mean? We’re all the way out here, Luca.”
“That’s my worry.”
And that’s the moment chills consume me. “Elaborate.”
Luca’s hands automatically find his hair, brushing it back, even though it constantly stays like that.
“A while back, when you and I were driving up to the house, I swore I saw someone. And I’ve just been getting this feeling. I added more trail cams, but nothing has shown up. So, I’m not sure what it was or if it was just my mind fucking with me.”
I look away from him, wanting to tell him about the night Roxy ran out and the noise I heard, but I know this place will become like Fort Knox, and I can’t have that. I need the space and freedom to do what I need to do. And mentioning anything to Luca will take that away. Hell, Weeks is already here.
“We just need to stay vigilant, then.” I decide not to mention anything to him.
Luca rests his elbows on his knees, looking into the darkness. “Maybe we need floodlights back there?” he says but mostly to himself, not looking for me to answer him.
The back door groans open before Weeks and Roxy both trot their way toward us.
“I looked, but there wasn’t anything on the camera, nothing for the last two days.”
Our cameras record over themselves every few days, reusing the data to keep recording.
“Okay,” Luca says absentmindedly. His thoughts are still on what he needs to do to keep us safe.
I watch Weeks pitter around with the firepit, popping the back off it, still trying to figure out how it happened.
In seconds he has the propane tank out and the hose disconnected, examining them, all while Roxy sniffs the ground like she’s hunting for something.
My interest peaks as I walk to her. “What are you smelling?” I ask her as if she was going to respond to me. She follows the scent into the bushes and stops, growling.
Apprehensively, I bend down, trying to get a sight of whatever she smells, but I see nothing.
“Roxy, you’re freaking me out,” I whisper to her.
I can hear Luca now speaking with Weeks, but all my attention is on this bush.
Blindly, I stick my hand in, feeling around when I jerk it back. My armpits become wet, even in the chilly night air, as I reach back in, clasping onto something. Thin and fabric like.
