Chapter Twelve
I turn toward the barn and grip both Julia’s hand and the chain connecting me to Jonas a little tighter. It’s the only place left where Dylan might be.
Its paint peels as though scorched by flame, black and red and bubbling and the heat I’d gotten used to is somehow hotter here.
The doors hang on their hinges. The lights dangling from their cords pulse with a sickly yellow glow.
But it’s empty inside.
Or… it is for me.
Julia’s skin has gone from gray to sheet white and the wisps of her semi-non-corporeal form flow toward the barn as if hell has finally gotten ahold of her and is trying to drag her in.
I don’t ask what she sees. I step behind her and look for myself.
There are two people inside the barn. The one she stares at is a man dressed like he’s from another era. And on the other side of the barn, I sit… no. It’s not me. Minnie sits on that side of the barn, in an enormous pile of hay, twirling her hair and blowing big, pink bubbles.
I look back at the man and squeeze Julia’s hand a little tighter, going to her side. “Is this the entrance for the wrathful?
“Yes.” Julia says, softly. “This is my path to punishment.”
“And that’s the man who killed you?”
“Yes.”
For the first time since we arrived in hell, I feel a faint tug.
Even though he’s already dead, I’d like to kill him all over again.
It offers Julia her murderer—I assume that’s why Minnie is inside as well: to tempt the man from the cornfield.
Julia touches her throat and I see a faint pulse of light there. The shape is too obvious to miss.
Handprints.
“He got what he wanted. But I didn’t let him enjoy it, even for a moment.” She doesn’t look away from him and I see the tendrils of her skirt flow toward him, its tug is stronger than it was before.
I catch Julia’s hand. She flinches at my touch, but I make her look at me.
“Come back with me.” I look in to where I know the man waits for her wrath. “Choose me. He’s dead, if you stay, you’re punishing yourself… and you’re punishing me. Not him.”
She smiles, squeezing my hand back and turns her back on the specter of the man who killed her.
“I’ll always choose you, Genevieve. The temptation it offers me there is hollow. I know better than to trust anything here that offers to give me what I want.”
She kisses me and I hear a low curse from behind us and the chain tugs a little.
When I look back. Jonas has turned away, from us and he’s adjusting his pants. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a creep.”
Julia laughs lowly. “Lust brought you here, you’re more susceptible to it here than you were in the living world.”
I start to tell Jonas that it’s okay when movement catches my eye, just a second too late.
The weight of another person knocks me to the ground and I shove at the man from the cornfield.
My hand goes straight through the hole in his chest and the strangeness of that makes me pause, just long enough that he gets his hands around my throat.
But he’s weak and broken and his grip doesn’t hurt as much as it should.
I’m able to knock his hands away.
Jonas hauls him off of me right as I kick and he goes sprawling backward into the barn.
Immediately, his skin catches flame and I watch in horror as it melts from him like he was a wax figurine.
“I can officially say I hate it here.” Jonas helps me up and Julia inspects my throat.
I shiver as I think about how easy it would have been for any of us to cross that threshold.
“We’re going back to the house.” I nod at my own words. Saying out loud has solidified my determination. “I don’t know where else to look, and the longer I keep you here, the more chances you have to be stuck here forever.”
I grip Jonas’s chain tighter and take Julia’s hand. Once they’re safe, I’ll come back and search alone.
I have to find him.