Let The Devil In

CHAPTER ONE

“Don’t die.”

Well, there go my plans for the night, I think as the wind picks up and the heater blares.

Flecks of white dot the night in a flurry of chaos before slamming into the windshield.

They swirl across the hood of my Toyota and crunch beneath the tires.

There’s a sort of demand behind the onslaught that has my fingers tightening around the wheel like I can somehow outlast the barrage.

At the back of my mind, I am very aware that there was a road somewhere at some point. I remember being on it before the storm caught up with me. Now, I’m freestyling my way down a highway that even my GPS can’t triangulate.

“Rina?”

Mom’s voice cracks, cutting through the speakers to spill into the cabin with me. The connection has rapidly distorted over the last mile and a half, creating a static that is only getting worse the further away I get from home.

“I won’t die,” I promise, body tipping forward just enough for me to squint through the glass.

“Do you ... Wednesday ... don’t ... white ... make...”

I can’t do it.

I can’t focus on the road and decipher Mom’s connection.

“Mom, I can’t hear you. I’ll call you when I get to Aunt Laura’s, okay?”

There’s a rapid clicking of distorted sound I take as Mom’s response. I disconnect and I relax my shoulders.

I still have no idea where I am or what’s ahead, but there is less chatter between my ears as I focus on just getting through this mess.

The drive could have waited.

I could have waited until the storm passed.

Could have told Jenna to go fuck herself when she voluntold me to go.

Hell, I could have listened to my GPS when it hounded me to take the next exit, and turn back instead of ignoring the sound advice.

But those are all things I can’t change now.

I just need to keep my calm and pray I eventually hit some form of civilization.

It does dawn on me that I haven’t come across a single cabin.

Not one gas station hidden from the world amongst the ocean of forest surrounding me.

I haven’t even passed another car in ...

hours. I can’t remember the last soul I passed.

It’s been miles of endless darkness pressing in on me from all sides, broken only by the howl of demons slamming against the windows.

I exhale and mentally kick myself for not waiting.

It’s not like Aunt Laura is getting any deader.

The woman passed two months ago and not a single person wanted to be the one to tackle the house she was found in .

.. one week too late. It doesn’t help that no one liked the woman.

Not even her own kids. Somehow, it was my name that got selected to drive out and assess the damage.

Bad, I’m guessing.

Even alive, the woman had been a nightmare hoarder, and that was before she had to get peeled off the bed and given a closed casket funeral. I don’t even want to imagine the stench. But someone has to do it.

I just wish it wasn’t the dead of winter, mere days from Christmas.

Determining the worth of a crumbling estate wouldn’t be this depressing if I didn’t have to drive back almost immediately.

Still, even if I reach the house in the next few hours, spent a few days doing a speedy assessment and drive straight back, I’d be arriving home Christmas morning.

“It’s fine,” I tell myself. “But no short cuts going back.”

It had seemed like a good idea when I saw the thin, pale vein twisting away from Route 17 and plunging deep into the Appalachian Mountains. What could possibly go wrong? At best, I’d avoid other drivers and make a quicker arrival.

Wrong.

I knew I fucked up three hours into my life choices. Now, it’s too late to turn back and I still have no idea if I’m getting any closer.

Reluctantly, I slant a nervous glance at the dashboard and the tiny, yellow E urging me to pull over for gas.

“Great,” I grumble under my breath. “Just what I...”

The blur comes out of nowhere.

It scurries past the dim strobes of light guiding my way and vanishes into the dark. The unexpected scuttle elicits a cry, and a sharp jerk of my arms.

The ice catches beneath my tires and I swerve.

The entire car fishtails as inertia catches.

My cry turns into a scream as I roll dangerously too far towards the right. The snow swirls in a chaotic dance that blinds me to the world as I fight with the wheel.

The road.

My racing heart.

The leather squeaks beneath my stiff fingers and I strain to right myself but I hit.

I collide with the snowbank.

A jarring thump sends my entire body heaving forward. The belt across my chest catches and I’m thrown back with a rattling thud.

“Oh my God,” I gasp, clutching my thundering heart. “Oh my God!”

Panting, I turn my head to scan the black void yawning outside my driver’s side window, searching for signs of the thing that nearly killed me.

But whatever it was, it’s gone. At least, I can’t see anything.

The only visible thing is my terrified expression staring back at me through the glass.

A pained beat thrums at my temple. A prickling of stress, no doubt, that travels down beneath my left eyebrow. I tentatively poke at the spot with shaking fingers to ease the pressure but it persists, moving even lower to collect behind my eye.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a spontaneous migraine, but the collision combined with the panic would do the trick.

“Great,” I mutter, blowing out a breath and blinking through tiny spots — that aren’t snowflakes — at the endless vacuum of darkness crushed against my windshield.

My heart claps violently up into my throat. It somersaults with terror as I realize with chilling horror that I was saved from plummeting to my death by a single, crumbling mound of snow.

A few more inches and I would have gone over.

The exhale I release leaks into the silence with a tremor that scuttles along my spine.

Trembling, I cautiously reverse and reposition myself back on where I’m assuming the road is.

I’m vaguely aware that my right wrist is throbbing.

There’s a persistent ache like I sprained it, and I think it definitely happened with the crash.

And there’s a knot in my neck that definitely needs a professional to work out. I must have hit harder than I thought.

On proper, solid ground, not inches from sudden death, I will myself to relax.

To take slow, calming breaths and steady myself before resuming the journey.

My brain filters through all the possibilities of what I nearly just murdered.

It was definitely too big to be a rabbit, but too small to be a bear.

A wolf? Maybe a deer?

I blow out a breath and ease down on the gas.

Can’t die, Katerina, I remind myself with grim amusement. I made a promise to Mom that I wouldn’t join Aunt Laura in the afterlife.

I definitely don’t think it would be a good idea to die where no one will find my body until spring. If even then. Part of me is uncomfortably certain no sane person would ever think to take this path.

Unconsciously, I steal a peek at the clock. The faint, pale glow blinks at three AM and I frown, trying to fathom how that’s possible when I don’t think I’ve been driving for that long.

When I continue to steal glances and the number doesn’t change, I come to the conclusion that the crash must have killed something.

Careful not to take my eyes off the road, I reach over and rap a knuckle on the glass.

Nothing.

Not even a flicker.

Aunt Laura owes me.

Not only did I nearly die, but now I need to take my car into the shop to get checked. Like this trip isn’t already costing me a small fortune in gas.

It wouldn’t be so terrible if the woman had harbored a single good bone in her body. From childhood, she’d been the aunt none of the children wanted to get close to. Her passing away does not negate the fact that she had been a horrible witch.

A collage of all the things Aunt Laura has personally done to me swims past my subconscious as I take a careful turn in the road.

It’s probably not how you’re supposed to remember the dead, but bad memories are all I have of the shrewd, callous woman with cold eyes and a sharp tongue.

She went out of her way every birthday, every holiday to remind everyone of their worthlessness.

Her idea of a gift was a jab at your deepest insecurities.

Gained some weight? She’d give you a gym membership and advise you not to snack so much.

Going through a divorce? A check for your ex for putting up with you for as long as they did.

My favorite gift from her was a talking mirror that told me how beautiful I was. An oddly sweet gesture, until I read the card.

“Since you will die single.”

I tell myself I’m not bothered, but Aunt Laura might have been right in her cruel little way. Twenty-seven and the only person who’s ever touched me in bed was a boy I loved before either of us understood what desire was supposed to feel like is a pathetic case.

It’s not like I haven’t tried. I’ve gone on dates.

Let men kiss me. Let their hands slide beneath my clothes.

But somewhere between wanting and doing, something inside me recoils.

A cold, sharp panic that turns my skin into stone.

They never see it. They chalk my paralyzed and rigid state as being too shy or nervous.

But I feel it like a scream lodged under my ribs.

Once, I forced myself into a one-night stand, determined to prove I wasn’t broken. He finished on my thigh a second later, but the real failure was me. I lay there, waiting to feel something, anything and all I wanted was for him to stop touching me.

After that, I decided maybe it was a sign. Every man I’ve ever let get close—close enough to kiss me, touch me, think they had a chance—has wound up injured.

Accidents, they called them.

A wrecked car on a dry road.

A fall on a trail he’d hiked his entire life.

Nothing suspicious. Nothing anyone could point to. But I know the patterns.