2. Ava
AVA
H ave you ever wondered what it must be like to be a ghost?
To have to watch the world move around you, knowing you’re stuck in the same, stagnant place. Never moving. Never changing.
An extension of the background, translucent and silent.
Sometimes I feel like a ghost, hiding out in the shadows of the Cross Estate while others live their lives around me. Cleaning and cleaning and then cleaning things that have already been cleaned because that’s my life.
My life has been a constant stream of trial and error, and up until this point, I wasn’t sure I’d even make it this far.
I guess I still don’t know.
I’m the housekeeper, and I see everything.
Like Bella Cross’s silent tears when she thinks no one is around because her father betrayed her in the worst way imaginable.
Or the way Christian Cross’s hands tighten whenever he sees that room in the back of the house.
. . . the way Levi Cross is a ticking time bomb, ready to implode on himself and everyone around him at any moment.
I see it all, though I’m not sure anyone sees me.
“It’s just a room, Ava.”
I’m sure if any one of the Cross family saw me whispering to myself like a lunatic while staring at the door at the end of the hall, they’d throw me out in a heartbeat.
The door looms down the long corridor. The same corridor I travel to go to bed every night, as my room is only three doors down.
I swallow over the lump in my throat, tightening my grip on the cleaning cart in front of me.
It’s just a room. No harm ever came from cleaning a room.
I’m supposed to clean this room every Monday, but I’ve been avoiding it since the funeral. Every time I think about entering, my stomach ties up in knots, and nausea pools in my stomach.
It’s been three weeks, though, and it’s time. If I don’t clean it now, I never will.
Twisting my master key in the lock, I push the door open, the scent of stale air burning in my nostrils.
Everything is exactly as it was left. The curtains are drawn, shutting out most of the light outside the second-story windows. The air is stuffy, reeking of dust and age, while my mind makes me believe it’s decay.
Like they left his body here for me to find.
Obviously, they did not. He’s dead and buried. William Cross is gone. So are his beady black eyes that used to follow me around the room while he spewed all manner of vile, cruel things at me.
I blow out a breath through my teeth, ignoring the unease slipping through my veins, and push my cart into the room.
I plan to strip the bed—something I’d rather not do, but it needs to be done.
I turn on the music in my headphones, letting the sound of Stevie Nicks wash away all the discomfort in my mind and focus on the task at hand.
People die. Whether it’s too early or too late, no one lives forever. It’s the people left behind to clean up the mess who are the real victims.
In this case, I’m not speaking about myself.
Yes, changing out the sheets of a dead man’s bed is not high on my top ten things I’d like to do list, but I’m also not sad he’s gone.
Even if he doesn’t deserve it, people are grieving for William Cross.
The Cross siblings not only lost their mother when they were young, but now they’ve lost their father. All that’s left is their mother’s sister, Paulina, who raised them like her own when Elizabeth was murdered by her son and husband.
They’ve suffered so much, yet they all carry their burdens silently. It’s just a reminder that my problems are just that. My own, and it’s no one else’s responsibility to help me.
Levi comes to mind. The way he buries everything so deep, I’m not even sure he knows it’s there.
Regardless of how much of an egotistical playboy he is, I know there’s a part of him he keeps locked away that won’t let him rest.
The walls may be thick, but I can hear him, up at all hours of the night, across the hall. I’ve debated on going over and asking if he’d like to talk so many times, it’s become a nightly ritual.
I won’t do it, though. After he essentially told me to mind my own business at the funeral, I’ve been avoiding him.
Levi Cross is not my problem.
The more time I spend cleaning the room, the more I feel like I’m being watched. Like someone is standing right behind me, just waiting for me to let my guard down.
I wouldn’t put it past William Cross to come back to haunt this place, though I’m sure he’d be much better suited as a servant of hell.
I focus on one task at a time, dusting the furniture in the room and cleaning the en-suite that William barely used. I even put all the belongings back exactly where they were after I finish, right down to the medicines on the bathroom counter.
Really, I’m just avoiding the bed, but that’s neither here nor there.
Finally, accepting defeat, I tug the sheets off and shove them in a trash bag, trying not to think about why they’re stained.
Bile slips up my throat, and I swallow it down, tying the bag in a knot and tossing it to the cart like it had caught fire.
I blow out a breath, closing my eyes.
The hard part’s over.
Time to get the hell out of here.
Unfortunately, when I turn around, I run right into a brick wall.
I scream, stumbling back until I fall onto the bed, only to be filled with horror and launch myself in the other direction until I crash to the floor.
When I look up, it’s into the eyes of the devil himself.
We haven’t spoken in three weeks. Not since the funeral when he treated me like I was Typhoid Mary, spreading the plague through all the lands.
He’s so handsome, sometimes it’s hard to look at him.
In fact, most of the time, I can’t. I’ve always struggled with eye contact, especially with men.
It was just a rule growing up in my family that you didn’t make eye contact, especially when you were in trouble.
With Levi, though, it’s worse. Like little electric shocks that sing across my skin where his gaze touches.
Now, I allow myself one glance at that perfectly carved face. The light, barely visible scar on his lip. The strong, tall muscles of his body hidden under a black hoodie and dark jeans. The icy blue eyes that always seem to follow me as if I’m doing something wrong.
Dark hair, broad shoulders, dark stare.
Levi Cross is sin personified.
His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear him through the music in my headphones. Heart hammering in my chest, I reach up with shaky hands and remove them.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Levi snaps, his stare cold and his tone harsh. He towers over me, and I scramble to my feet, keeping as much space between us as I can.
“Cl-cleaning,” I reply, stuttering from the adrenaline rushing through me. I use the dresser to drag myself up onto shaky legs, my heart beating rapidly against my ribcage.
“Get out.”
My mouth falls open; the words caught in my throat. I can’t look him in the eyes because doing so is like staring into the sun.
“I-it’s Monday—”
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s Christmas. Get. Out.”
My feet are frozen to the floor and I’m unable to move. I stammer through an apology, but Levi doesn’t care, grabbing me by the upper arm and dragging me from the room. He grabs my cart, next, shoving it out the door, and locks the room up tight behind him.
When he’s done, he steps up in front of me, so close that I have no choice but to meet his gaze when he backs me into the wall.
His hand comes up to grip my chin and force my gaze to his.
His eyes are all-consuming—deadly—and my heart bottoms out at the feral depravity in his gaze.
“The next time I see you in that room,” he murmurs darkly.
“I’ll spank your ass.” He leans forward, his lips only inches from my ear, and a shiver ghosts through me when his breath brushes over my bare skin. “And I’ll make sure you like it.”
And with that, he storms off down the hall, taking the bag of stained sheets with him while I try to remember how to breathe.
Night had swallowed Cross Estate whole.
I wake to the creak of footsteps on the wooden floor just outside my door—slow, deliberate, too measured to be accidental. Each step thrums in time with my pulse, a rhythm of dread counting down to something I can’t yet name.
One . . . two . . . three . . .
He’s come every night for the past three weeks. No one else knows. Not his family, not the staff. Only me.
He slips in under the cover of darkness like a ghost that never truly left. Always the same hour—two in the morning—when the house is asleep and even the walls seem to breathe softer.
Sometimes he opens my door. Just a crack. Just enough to watch me as I pretend to sleep. Then he closes it without a sound.
Other nights, he disappears into the room across the hall—his old room, still untouched—staying only long enough to remind me he’s real.
But tonight is different.
Tonight, the footsteps don’t stop at his door.
They keep going.
Past mine.
Past the others.
Toward the very end of the hall, where the air grows colder and the silence feels like it’s holding its breath.
And somehow, without even seeing him, I know someone is going to die at Cross Estate tonight.
THUD
I jump awake to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door, followed by soft giggles.
“You’re bad,” a woman says, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to realize where I am.
My heart pounds in my chest, chasing away the remnants of the dream.
It’s always the same, but tonight it felt more lifelike.
“Are you going to be bad for me?”
I pause at the brooding voice, listening to the sound of people outside my door.
Oh great. Levi must be meeting someone from his fan club.
“I’m not that kind of girl.”
“ Yes, she is ,” I mouth to the ceiling.
Look, I’m not bitter. I’m all for women having sex lives and hook-ups, so long as everyone follows the rules and no one gets hurt.
What I’m not for is being woken up for the third night in a row because Levi’s trying to get laid.
“What happens here stays between us,” Levi croons, and can’t help but roll my eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve heard everything about you,” she laughs softly. “Promise to call, and then you disappear. The eternal bachelor.”
God, could he get any more predictable?
“It’s not like that with you,” Levi lies. I know it’s a lie because he’s said the same thing to the last three women he’s brought home. Like I said, I see and hear everything. It’s definitely not a blessing. “With you . . . it’s different.”
“ It’s different ,” I mock under my breath, rolling over and covering my head with my pillow. I can’t hear what she says, but I’m sure it’s something along the lines of Oh, please, Levi. Whisk me to your room so we can keep your housekeeper up all night howling like wildebeest in the wild.
Okay . . . maybe I am bitter.
I don’t hear what else is said, but I do have the privilege of hearing the bedroom door slam shut and then something hit it a moment later.
Maybe it’s his head, and with any luck, she’s knocked him out.
Rolling back over, I stare at the ceiling in defeat.
1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .
I glance at the clock when the first moan hits.
Three in the morning. Looks like sleep is out the window for me . . . again.
Wonderful.
Slipping from the bed, I cross to the dresser on the other side of my rented room and open the top drawer. I don’t have many clothes, but what I do have conceals the box hidden underneath it all.
“God, you’re amazing,” Random Woman #4 moans across the hall, and I reach for my phone resting on my nightstand, reading over the message again.
Unknown: One week.
The room feels smaller suddenly, the shadows in the corners creeping closer. I swallow hard, ignoring the sounds from across the hall while I try to quell the chill slipping through me.
Like I’m being watched.
Ava: Who are you?
The reply is almost instant, and it fills my heart with dread.
Unknown: You can call me Black.
I count to three, something I started doing not long after I started at Cross Estate. It doesn’t help, but it’s what the mentally sound people do when they’re feeling anxious, so I like to pretend I’m the same.
One . . .
Two . . .
Three . . .
I shiver, even though my room is warm, and check the shadows in the corners for any ghosts lurking with oxygen masks and beady dark eyes.
Unfortunately, the chill is somewhere deeper. A part of me locked away that I refuse to access. Like a girl trapped in a closet screaming for someone to let her out.
Sadly, I don’t think it will be me.