Chapter Three #3
Ah, semantics. My favorite. “It’s not a butcher’s knife. Technically, it’s more of a—”
“Margot, no.” I’ve never heard him this serious. “What if it hadn’t been me? What if they had a gun? What the fuck were you thinking—”
I interrupt his—reasonable under the circumstances—lecture. “I was worried that by the time I drove far enough to call, and help actually got here, the intruder would be gone.”
“So?” Caine’s incredulous. “They steal a laptop, or a TV or something, and get away. I don’t know how much my brother pays you, but it isn’t enough for this shit.” He grabs the leash, balling it up roughly, as if it personally offends him. Strong possibility, considering I tied him up with it.
“It was a bad choice,” I admit. His anger feels good, an absolution of sorts. Balm for the fucked-up part of me that’s happiest when being told how horrible I am.
Sheryl earns every penny she gets.
If he’s angry about me “trying to catch a burglar” or whatever he thinks I was doing, I may not ever have to mention Nicholas.
Gremlin scurries into the room, an urgent trot that makes me think she’s here to save me from the intruder.
Belatedly, but in her defense, she has little legs.
Instead, she does a doggy pirouette and stares me down, making it clear that isn’t the case.
“Gremlin needs to go out. I’ll be right back.
” I scoop her up and rise, hoping he won’t follow.
“We’re not done talking about this.” His voice is a grumble. I’m already out the bedroom door. If I can get two minutes alone, I’ll be able to compose myself. I don’t get my minutes. Caine follows. A hulking spirit, he haunts me through the hallway and down the stairs.
At the front door, I switch Gremlin to my other arm and undo the dead bolt. Caine’s so close I can practically hear his mouth open to ask me another question. Maybe I’ll run out the front door without looking back.
Cut a confession out of my ex-husband? Sure thing.
Be emotionally vulnerable? Hard no.
Another problem for Sheryl. I pull the handle harder than I mean to, the front door swinging inward.
Movement where there shouldn’t be pulls my gaze.
Thick and ropelike, an item sways with the arc of the door, undulating as it moves through the air toward me.
Something white flutters to the ground, but I’m still trying to make sense of the first unexpected item.
Even as I’m realizing this isn’t right, I’m moving.
Caine grabs me, yanking me back against his chest. I yelp, elbowing him on instinct.
He grunts. Gremlin yips. We stagger backward, a monster made up of my flailing limbs, a squirming dog, and Caine saying, “Relax, relax,” like he didn’t create the beast we are.
Wrenching out of his hold, I step away. “Don’t grab me.”
My body doesn’t care that the fear I experienced earlier was the self-preservation kind. It’s turned the adrenaline into arousal. Caine touching me will not improve the situation.
He’s staring past me, at the open door, or maybe the darkness of the porch beyond. Stepping around me like I didn’t speak, he moves closer to it.
“What is wrong with you…” The question dies on my lips.
I see what’s on the door, finally understanding the unexpected movement I couldn’t make sense of.
There’s a huge brown snake hanging from the U-hook on the front door where there should be a cheerful summer wreath.
A bright red ribbon is tied in a bow around both snake and hook.
The snake wiggles lazily, and I see it’s draped over the hook, not impaled on it.
Thank goodness. The loop of ribbon catches and then slides free.
Bile churns in my stomach as the snake lands inside the front door with a gentle thump.
The rattlesnake is bigger around than my wrist and longer than my arm.
The tan, taupe, and umber patterns on its scales are lovely. They’re also chillingly familiar.
War.
Caine steps closer.
“Don’t get near her.” It’s my turn to grab. Snatching the back of his sweatshirt, I tug. He doesn’t step back, but he doesn’t move any closer. “She’s a rattlesnake; they’re venomous.”
For behold, I will send serpents among you—
He’s focused on the reptile. “In Maine?” he asks, voice thoughtful. “I don’t think those are native, at least not anymore. Are they?”
A shiver starts beneath my sternum and spreads throughout my body.
—vipers which cannot be charmed—
Dread makes my knees weak. I’ve lost the me who hunted an intruder through the house, and I can’t get her back with these verses filling my head.
The sense of impending doom feels like a third person in the entryway with us.
I can’t let panic take me, I can’t, not yet, not while there’s a rattlesnake in Claire and Shane’s entryway, and Caine’s still looking at it, and why, why, why can’t I shut up the little voice in my head?
—and they shall bite you, says the Lord—
I spit the answer to his question like a curse, bitterness filling my mouth, and the rest of me. “Maine doesn’t have rattlesnakes.”
But Nicholas does.