Chapter 9
Sera
One hour before work, I have photos spread across my bedroom floor like a deck of tarot cards, each one predicting the same inevitable ruin.
Sheriff Vincent Harrow caught in pixels and timestamps—different towns, different bars, different hotel parking lots at two a.m., different women who thought they were special. His hand on a lower back that isn’t his wife’s.
The air goes still.
Not quiet, but still, like the house is holding its breath.
Then—pop. The electric hum that’s been the constant background noise of this rotting Victorian dies. Darkness rushes in like floodwater.
I continue to sit cross-legged on the floor surrounded by Vincent’s sins in the dark.
My breath fogs in the sudden cold. The temperature plummets—not gradually, but all at once, like someone opened a door to winter.
Daddy always knows when I’m about to cross a line.
The first whisper slides into my skull like a needle finding nerve.
Careful.
“Not now, Shadow Daddy,” I mutter, rubbing my temples.
I like speaking to him by way of Ouija board better because it hurts less, but I don’t have time now.
The house convulses. Every outlet sparks—blue-white flashes that illuminate the room in strobing bursts. The windows rattle in their frames. The floorboards groan. Ice crystals spider across the glass, spreading like fractures in bone.
Ignoring all of it, I drop my gaze back to the photos. Vincent’s face smiles up at me from a dozen frozen moments of betrayal. This is my latest round of ammunition, after the rounds of flaming dog shit on his porch.
When I still lived in Kansas City, I hired a private investigator to follow him around Wichita, knowing exactly the kinds of things he’d find out about Vincent before he found them.
The envelope sits ready beside the pictures, plain manila, addressed in careful block letters to Evelyn Harrow.
Not to their house—Vincent may intercept it there.
But to the Hallmark store in the mall, where his wife works part-time Tuesday through Saturday, selling greeting cards and porcelain angels to people who still believe in happy endings.
When I first got to Wichita, between my outings to the dog park for fresh shit and my shifts at Gas N’ Go, I did my research.
I followed her for three days until I knew her patterns, like that she parks in the same spot, takes a lunch break at noon, and orders the same salad from the food court, although when she’s feeling reckless, she’ll go to Chick-fil-A.
I became her stalker, just as James had become mine.
Did that mean that she and I would eventually murder someone and then fuck in their blood?
My guess is probably not.
Each time-stamped photo goes into the envelope, and I seal the flap and press my thumb into the glue.
Your perfect world is about to crack, Evelyn.
It’s hard to know how I feel about her without knowing her.
Maybe she genuinely has no idea what kind of man she’s married to, but if the man I’d pledged my life to had been accused of rape and the case had gone all the way to court, I would have questions and doubts, no matter the verdict. Lots of them.
Do I feel sorry for her? That’s a loaded question. Maybe a little, but not sorry enough to stop what I’m about to do.
The whisper returns, low and furious, vibrating up through the floorboards. Don’t.
Daddy knows that every act of vengeance within my plan makes me a target, but that’s the point. I want Vincent to know it’s me who’s dismantling his life before his very eyes.
Out of all the things I want to do to him, this is nothing. This is nothing compared to what he did to me.
“Fine,” I say to the darkness where Daddy watches from the walls. “I won’t deliver it today.”
I’m totally delivering it today.
James’s van idles at the curb when I step outside, the envelope tucked into my bag. He leans against the driver’s side door, arms crossed, that familiar wolf-smile playing on his lips.
“Good day, Prayer?”
When I reach him, I press my lips to his. “Now it is. Care to tail me to the mall first before you tail me to work?”
I whisper the last part so my shadow daddy doesn’t hear and try to leave the house again to stop me.
James scoffs even as his gaze dips to my mouth and up again with an intensity that heats the fall chill. “Ye ken I’ll tail ye anywhere. What’s at the mall?”
“Hallmark.”
His brow furrows over his manic, bright-blue eyes. “As in sappy greeting cards and reeking cinnamon candles everywhere?”
“Yep, that’s the place.”
“I dinnae figure ye for a Hallmark kind of lass, but ye surprise me every day. Let’s get a shift on.”
When we arrive, we park next to each other, and I can feel his questions through the windows when I don a long, blonde wig and a big pair of sunglasses.
He doesn’t ask any of them though when I step out except, “Want me to come in?”
“No. This one’s mine.”
His eyes search my face, finding something that makes him nod slowly. “Aye. Fair enough. But if you’re not back in five, there willnae be a mall for anyone anymore. A tragic loss for the great city of Wichita.”
I smile. “Indeed. But I’ll be back in less than five.”
I’m not too worried anyway since we parked close to the entrance, and the place is bustling for mid-afternoon. Red Hands surely won’t make a move in a place so crowded…yet on the other hand, he broke into my car in broad daylight.
As soon as I step through the mall doors and spot a security guard—a burly female who looks like she chews glass for fun—I breathe a fraction easier.
The Hallmark store sits between a Cinnabon and a shoe shop, its windows full of pastel crosses and inspirational word art, like LIVE LAUGH LOVE in cursive above a stock photo sunset. I want to put my fist through it.
I walk in with the envelope held casually at my side and confidence in every step. I’m just another customer, a customer with murder on her mind and an envelope full of damaging evidence.
Two employees cluster near the register—college-aged girls, probably part-time. Evelyn Harrow is currently on her lunch break.
I walk to the counter and set the envelope down.
The girls look up.
“Can I help you?” one asks.
“Just dropping something off for Mrs. Harrow.” My smile feels like a blade hidden in silk. “She’s expecting it.”
The lie slides out smooth and easy.
The girl takes the envelope. “Okay, I’ll make sure she gets it.”
I turn and walk out.
When I make it back to James’s van, he raises an eyebrow. “Done?”
I slip off my wig and sunglasses. “Done.”
James tails me to work, and in the rearview mirror, I watch the mall shrink and imagine Evelyn finding that envelope when she gets back from her lunch break.
Her trembling hands as she opens it. Her possible denial—this can’t be real; there must be some mistake.
Then the slow, cold realization settling into her bones like frost. The way her world will crack and splinter.
It feels better than I expected.
It feels like control.
***
After my shift at Gas N’ Go, the private investigator Eddie hired follows me home. Eddie and James made up a whole schedule about who does what to protect me and when. It warms my chest. It makes me want to invite my monsters in even more.
When I step inside, my house hums, a low vibration in the walls, like the building itself is exhaling.
The air is still cool, but not hostile. More like…anticipatory.
Upstairs, I jump into the shower, and when I step out, condensation clouds the mirror. Finger-traced through the moisture, there’s a single word:
LIAR
I stare at it, at the accusation dripping slowly down the mirror’s surface.
Then I wipe it away with my palm, leaving a clean streak through the fog.
“Fine,” I say to my reflection, to the presence hovering just beyond sight. “I lied. Now get over here and fuck me.”
The bathroom light flickers once, twice, then it goes out. The unlit candle on the countertop flares suddenly to life. The flame leaps tall and bright, casting dancing shadows across the walls.
A silent acknowledgment.
An answer in fire and darkness.
I smile and lean against the counter, ass out, already feeling the cold presence gathering at my back like wings folding around prey.
The darkness condenses. Cold air presses against my bare skin, not like wind, but like hands shaping themselves from the absence of light. It slides up the backs of my thighs, icy and deliberate, and I shiver, goose bumps rising. My nipples tighten instantly, painfully hard against the chill.
The candle flame gutters wildly, stretching shadows long and sharp across the bathroom tiles.
“Are you going to punish me?” I breathe, arching my back slightly.
A low growl vibrates through the air, a hum that resonates in my teeth, deep in the hollows behind my ears. It’s disapproval and possession coiled tightly together.
The cold gathers between my legs, a focused point of freezing pressure that parts my folds with insistent, invisible force. I gasp. A solid column of shadow, veined with fire and charred in places, impossibly hot and utterly real, presses against my entrance and pushes in.
Oh fuck.
I half expected him to just fuck me with his shadows or my dildo or my gun, but ever since he rescued me from Red Hands, my daddy’s been more corporeal, at least in certain places like his cock.
The stretch is immediate, shocking. The molten friction burns as he fills me, deeper, impossibly deep, spearing me on heated darkness. My knees buckle. I hold tighter to the edge of the counter, my knuckles white.
The mirror in front of me reflects my wide eyes, my parted lips fogging the glass with each aroused exhale. There’s nothing behind me but writhing shadow, a living darkness coiled around my naked body, icy tendrils snaking around my waist, anchoring me.
The heat inside me is intense, a penetrating burn that steals my breath. It sinks into my bones, into the marrow, and probes all of my hidden places.
His cock pulses with a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrates through my core while the burnt parts of it strum my clit with its rough edges. It’s the punishment I wanted.
“Harder.” I push back against the solid cock impaling me and gasp. “Come on, Shadow Daddy. Make me feel it.”
The hum intensifies, becoming a growl that rattles the walls and topples the bottles in the shower and on the bathroom countertop.
The pressure inside me increases. His thick cock drags almost all the way out, leaving me achingly empty and clenching around nothing but cold air. Then he slams back in.
I cry out, the sound swallowed by the thickening dark. He fucks me with brutal, efficient strokes, leaving me screaming at myself in the mirror. The countertop edge bites into my hip bones with each thrust. My tits sway heavily, dragging against the counter, my nipples so hard they ache.
Another tendril of shadow peels away from the mass and curls around my throat like a cold, claiming collar. It tightens slightly with each inward plunge of that cock, forcing my head back, exposing my throat to the hungry dark.
Yet another tendril teases and plucks my nipples into throbbing points.
Shadow Daddy manifests just enough to grab the bottle of unscented body lotion from the countertop and squirts it generously over my tits.
The slick white cream drips down my skin, and his tendrils seize the opportunity, sliding over my skin, teasing my nipples into hard peaks while they twist and glide, turning my breasts into a playground for his dark whims.
Another tendril coils like living smoke up from the dark, slithers across the lotion on my tits, and probes at my ass with insistence. It breaches me there, cold and unyielding, stretching the tight ring of muscle until I’m gasping, filled in both holes now.
The cold of his shadows and the heat of his cock blur. The cold isn’t just cold anymore; it’s a chemical burn, a numbness that edges into something perilously close to pleasure. Pain sparks along my nerves, bright and electric, meeting the deep, grinding pressure inside my cunt.
My inner walls flutter, trying to absorb my shadow daddy, to make him a part of me. His glacial and blazing invasion carve me open from every angle. It feels like being fucked by ice and fire, both relentless powers capable of devastation.
His cock inside me pulses harder, driving all thoughts away with sheer, overwhelming sensation. The rhythm shifts, becoming shorter, sharper thrusts aimed directly at that tender, swollen place deep inside me.
The shadow tendril in my ass sinks deeper and fucks me harder. More lotion squirts onto my tits, which makes the tendrils slide and tighten around my stiffened nipples even more.
Pleasure detonates, shocking against the pervasive heat and cold. It rips a ragged scream from my throat. My pussy spasms violently around the invading darkness of his cock, trying to milk it, to pull it deeper. The orgasm shatters through me, leaving me trembling and gasping.
But his cock and tendrils don’t stop. They keep pistoning into my oversensitive, clenching cunt and ass, drawing out the aftershocks into trembling waves.
The tendril around my throat tightens, cutting my air to a sliver. Another shadowy tendril, slick with my own wetness, finds my swollen clit. It circles the aching nub, sending fresh jolts of tortured pleasure through my spent body.
Tears prick my eyes from the sheer, overwhelming intensity of being so utterly taken, so completely filled by the dark.
His cock pulses violently inside me, a deep, possessive throb that echoes in every corner of my being while he comes. His satisfied growl shakes through my teeth and into the floor.
The tendril around my throat loosens, and I drag in a huge, ragged breath.
Shadow Daddy slides out of me slowly, dragging a whimper from me as the cold emptiness replaces it. I feel stretched, used, deliciously hollow. My legs shake violently.
The mass of shadows behind me withdraws, taking all of its many tendrils with it, flowing back into the corners of the bathroom, leaving behind only the chill. The candle flame steadies, shrinking back to a normal size.
I slump against the counter, my reflection in the mirror flushed and wrecked.
My eyes are dark pools, my pupils blown wide, and leaking…
something. Something dark, like mascara…
but not. Like the blackest of ink, thick, oily, and so dark that it makes me look monstrous.
A thin trickle of the same fluid on my cheeks seeps down the insides of my thighs.
I touch some on my face and bring it to my lips. It tastes like salt and earth and rot. I moan and suck my finger harder, then trace my finger over the trickle down my thighs and lick every last drop.
Pushing myself upright, I meet my own gaze in the mirror. A slow, satisfied smile curves my lips.
Whatever I’m leaking, I taste fucking delicious.