Chapter 6 #2
My GPS stops working a mile back—no signal up here. Just intuition and a half-remembered mention from Mrs. Santanoni about the old estate being "up the mountain, past the stone bridge, can't miss it if you're looking for something haunted."
Then I see it.
The house is a corpse.
Once grand, probably beautiful, now it's rotting from the inside out.
Victorian bones showing through peeling paint.
Windows broken or boarded.
The front door hangs open like a mouth mid-scream.
Nature is reclaiming it—vines through the walls, a tree growing through what was probably a ballroom.
I park and get out, drawn to the decay like a character in one of my novels.
The air feels different here.
Heavier.
Like the house is holding its breath.
There's a smell too—rot and rust and something sweeter, like flowers left too long in a vase.
The porch steps groan under my weight.
Inside, I can see wallpaper hanging in strips like flayed skin.
A chandelier lies shattered on the floor, its crystals scattered like teeth.
"You shouldn't be here."
I don't scream, but it's close.
Cain stands at the edge of the property, appearing from nowhere like he's made of the same shadows as the house.
"I needed to see it," I say.
He moves closer, each step deliberate.
Today he's in all black again—jeans, sweater, coat that makes him look like something out of a Gothic novel. "Why?"
"To understand."
"Understand what?"
"You. This. Why someone would come back to a place where terrible things happened."
He's close now, close enough that I can see the silver scar through his eyebrow, the way his jaw tightens when he looks at the house.
"Sometimes we return to our haunted places to prove they can't hurt us anymore," he says. "Sometimes we come back to make sure the ghosts stay dead."
"Did they? Stay dead?"
His smile is sharp as winter. "Nothing stays dead, Celeste. Not really. The past just changes shape, finds new ways to bleed into the present."
"Is that why you built your cabin? To watch the house rot?"
"I built my cabin to have something that was mine. Something they never touched." He looks at me then, really looks at me, and I feel like he's reading my bones. "Jake was at your house."
It's not a question. "How did you—"
"I know everything that happens on this mountain." He steps closer. I should step back, but don't. "Did he hurt you?"
"No."
"But he wanted to."
I don't answer, but I don't need to.
Cain's eyes darken, and for a moment, I see what Bobby must have seen freshman year.
What made three teachers necessary to pull him off.
"Jake Bauer thinks being close to someone is permission enough," he says quietly. "He thinks history is destiny. He thinks wanting something enough makes it his right to take it."
"He mentioned you. Said you're dangerous."
"I am dangerous." He says it simply, like stating the weather. "But not to you. Never to you."
"How can you know that?"
"Because you don't make me want to hurt. You make me want to preserve. To protect. To possess, yes, but not to break." He reaches out, his fingers almost touching my hair, then pulls back. "Jake wants to break you. Punish you for that rejection. Make you small enough to fit in his hands."
"And what do you want?"
"I want you exactly as you are. Dark and brilliant and unafraid of your own shadows." His hand moves to his pocket, pulling out a folded paper. "You dropped this at Stella's."
I unfold it.
It's not mine—it's another page from my deleted manuscript.
A scene where my heroine realizes she's in love with her stalker.
"I didn't drop this."
"No," he agrees. "But you wrote it. Then deleted it because Juliette said it was too dark. That readers wouldn't understand how she could love someone who violated her privacy, her safety, her sense of self."
My blood goes cold. "How do you know what Juliette said?"
"Because she tells me everything when she drinks. Which is often, lately. The stress of trying to make you palatable to the masses is wearing on her."
"You—"
"I'm the one leaving you gifts." He says it calmly, watching my face. "The feather. The book. The photo. The key."
I should run.
Should scream.
Should do anything except stand here feeling like the world is finally making sense.
"You've been in my room."
"Yes."
"You've been watching me."
"Yes."
"You killed those women."
"No." He steps closer. "But I killed the man who was watching you before I was. Roy Dunham. He had photos of you, plans for you. I made sure those plans died with him."
"You're confessing to murder."
"I'm confessing to protection. There's a difference."
My phone rings.
Dad, probably wondering where I am.
I don't answer.
"You should go," Cain says. "Your father will send Jake looking for you, and I'd rather not have to kill a deputy today."
"You wouldn't."
"For you? I'd kill anyone who tried to hurt you. I'd make it slow. I'd make it meaningful." He says it like a love poem. "Go home, Celeste. Lock your doors. Your windows. Jake's escalating, and your father's too distracted to see it."
"How do you know he's escalating?"
"Because I recognize a predator preparing to strike. He's testing boundaries, building courage. Tonight, maybe tomorrow, he'll try to get inside." Cain pulls out a different key, modern, new. "This opens my cabin. If you need somewhere safe, use it."
"Why would I run to you? You just admitted to stalking me. Killing for me."
"Because I'm the monster who wants to keep you alive and whole and free. Jake's the one who wants to cage you." He turns to leave, then pauses. "Lock your bedroom door tonight. Not just the window. Jake has keys to your father's house. All the deputies do, for emergencies."
He disappears into the woods, leaving me standing in front of the rotting house with two keys in my hand—one to the past, one to possible safety.