Chapter 32
Becki
The sweat is cold when I wake, not warm, not human. It slicks my skin like I crawled out of a river full of hands. My lungs seize, refusing air, and for a moment, I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming or drowning.
My wrist aches where the chain sat. My heartbeat is too loud, thud-thud-thud, like something inside me is trying to punch its way out.
The dream clings like wet cobwebs.
Something hunted me in the dark.
Not Royal. Not the men who chained me. Not just here in the clubhouse. But ever chained me. Not the Reverend or his sermons sharpened into knives.
No.
This thing was older. Hungrier. With limbs too long and shadows stitched to its skin.
Eyes burning like coals.
Breath that smelled like incense and rot.
It chased me across the cemetery, leaping between graves like it belonged there like it was born from the stones.
Right when it knocked me down, right when its weight pressed into my ribs, right when it lowered its face to my throat and I felt the heat of its breath…
It whispered.
Not Becki.
My real name.
Rebecca.
Only the Reverend calls me that.
Only he spits it like a curse.
Under the grotesque silhouette, under the wings and the claws, there is something familiar.
The angle of the shoulders. The slow drag of one foot.
A small limp from an old injury that pulls right before the step.
I have seen that walk before, in the long hallway beneath Pearly Gates, where my daddy kept his most loyal follower hidden from the congregation.
Brother Martin. Quiet, unreadable Martin, who moved like smoke and stared like he was waiting for God to speak through blood.
The nightmare shifts. The wings spread wider, too wide for a man. The creature bends backward with a crack that rattles my bones. Something skitters along the window frame. Two shadows overlap on the wall.
One human.
One not.
I wake again gasping, the sheets twisted in my fists, and I can’t tell if the monster in my dream is real, or not.
And Royal’s not in bed
I curl into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees so tight my joints scream. I’ve had nightmares before, religion does that to you, abuse too, but nothing like this. This one tasted real. Metallic. Like the air in the basement under Pearly Gates.
Like truth.
I glance at the vent.
Closed. Screwed tight.
I haven’t pushed my luck since the night I crawled out and found more blood than answers.
Since Royal dragged me back and kissed me like he hated me for breathing.
I remember when he taped my mouth, locked me in the closet to punish me for wanting him, then made me watch him break someone else. Like he broke me last night.
I’ve been good.
Good enough.
But now I wonder if it matters…
I pull the battered spiral notebook from under the mattress and open to a blank page. My handwriting is jagged, uneven.
Demon Leaper:
– Tall
– Shadow limbs
– Fire eyes
– Incense + sulfur + rot
– Fast
– Graveyard
Voice: whispered my name. Not Becki. Rebecca.
Meaning: either hallucination or something that knows me.
I underline the last part twice, aggressively.
I add:
Royal saw something too. He lied about it. His eyes didn’t.
The clubhouse is unusually still. Not the fun kind of quiet. The kind that comes before something breaks.
I press my ear to the metal door.
Footsteps.
Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
They stop right outside.
My breath freezes.
I pull back slowly, silently. Waiting for a voice. A key. A threat.
Nothing.
No knock.
No whispered warning.
No Royal half-snarl, half-confession.
Just silence.
Except…
not silence.
Pressure.
Like someone exhaled against the door.
Like something leaned close enough to smell fear.
Then. Nothing.
No footsteps leaving.
Just… absence.
I sit back on the bed, heart thundering.
Maybe it’s my imagination.
Maybe the dream stuck too deep.
Or maybe something is standing right on the other side of the wall.
Watching.
Reminds me of something. In a rush, I write about Martin. I should tell someone about the dream. About the sound outside the door. About the footprints that didn’t exist.
But who?
Royal?
He’d think I was manipulating him again.
Or worse, he’d believe me.
Legend?
He’d toss me to the woods and let whatever whispered my name finish what it started.
So I write.
Girls missing. Cemetery clues. Demon = more than rumor. Reverend connected. Danger = growing.
I draw what I dreamed.
The Reverend always preached fire and obedience. Cleansing. Sacrifice. He said God demanded purity, and he alone decided what it meant.
Now girls are disappearing. Blood shows up under gravestones. Royal found chains in the Pearly Gates basement. Sometimes I even question if they were ever real. And now something whispering my damn name.
I flip back through the pages I just marked, my sketches, my memories, the pieces of truth I’m piecing together, coming out of me in granite.
The Demon Leaper. Some say he steals souls. Others say he hunts sinners. A few say he’s tied to a preacher who made a deal with something dark.
The dreams don’t feel like dreams. They feel like memories wearing someone else's skin. The creature crouches on the church steeple, wings curled around its body like a bat waiting to strike. Its eyes burn in the dark. Its claws scrape the shingles. When it leaps, the air shudders around me.
But the longer I stare, the less monstrous it becomes.
I lie back slowly.
Royal’s shirt rides up my stomach, but I don’t pull it down. Let him look. Let him see the bruises he caused. The ones he didn’t.
Let him want what he shouldn’t.
Because I ain’t done.
Not with him.
Not with the Reverend.
Not with the ghost that hunts girls in Hell, Kentucky.
I close my eyes and let exhaustion drag me under.
This time, when the dream takes me, it’s not the Demon waiting there.
It’s Royal.
I’m on the same bed unchained. His pants are off, his cock out. His eyes molten.
He kneels between my legs, hands tracing slow paths up my thighs. His touch is fire, hungry, claiming, barely restrained. He’s breathing hard, like he’s fighting himself.
He leans down, mouth at my throat.
“Be strong,” he murmurs. “Or I’ll break you myself.”
Heat explodes in my chest.
My back arches. My fingers curl in his hair. He crushes his mouth to mine.
I wake with a gasp, shaking, sheets tangled around my legs, breath coming in ragged bursts. My skin is flushed, my thighs slick, my pulse out of control.
I stare at the ceiling.
Not for wanting him. But for wanting more. Wanting the danger. Wanting to be broken. By him. Wanting the man who cut me so I’ll moan only his name.
I want him to come in here and burn me down.
Even if it kills us both.
And the worst part?
Somewhere in this twisted nightmare, a real monster is out there stealing girls.