Chapter 14 #3
“I do,” Stefan confirmed. “Unfortunately, I’m one of the few who knows this firsthand. We have seen and dealt with these cases before, particularly Dr. Maddy. It’s not something we want to acknowledge as possible really, but the situation here has changed.”
“Is there anything I can do to stop it?” Camden asked, looking grim. “Is there anything she can do? I mean, she’s obviously the potential victim.”
“For one, we need to get some protection around her. She also needs to understand that these entities can’t take over without some permission.
The trouble is, permission doesn’t look the same to you and to me.
When I say that, you think, No problem because I’ll never give permission, but, in a way, you may already have. ”
Hearing her suck in her breath, Camden turned and saw the shock on her face as she now stood.
“Permission?” she whispered. “I would never give permission for this.”
“No, but you wouldn’t have known what you were giving permission for. That is part of the problem with the people who are doing this. They have the whole picture, while you do not, so you are at a distinct disadvantage. And you do understand why she would do this, I presume.”
“Yes, she wants to be with her kids.”
“And that helps her to get permission from you because you can understand why she’s doing this. So, in many ways, you’re already opening the door.”
Devon sank back down onto the couch, and Camden tucked her up against his chest.
Camden said, “Stefan, there has to be something we can do.”
“I’m already placing a guard around her,” he replied. “That will go quite a way to keeping the entities away from her, at least stopping them from knocking her out as they did the girl.”
“Do you think that’s why Tabby’s more willing to tell me the truth? That maybe she understood more from being knocked out?” she asked suddenly.
“I don’t know, but that would be something to ask her.”
“No thanks,” Devon declared. “I don’t want to ask her. I don’t trust them to tell me the whole truth. I’m really struggling with even seeing them again.”
“Of course,” Stefan declared, “because, in your mind right now, they’re just seeing you as a vessel that their mother can take over and then you would cease to exist. But it’s not quite that easy.”
“I’m damn glad it’s not that easy,” she snapped.
Stefan noted that her words had a biting overtone, which he heartily approved of.
He couldn’t even bear to categorize his own reactions but searing red anger was one of them.
“Good. You need to be angry,” Stefan confirmed.
“This is somebody taking away your rights and sacrificing your life and body for her own personal use. You need to be angry, as that will make their task that much harder.”
“Oh, I’m angry, all right,” she declared. “The trouble is, I’m very angry at her, and I can’t even tell her. I can’t in any way express how absolutely devastated I am that she would consider this to be her answer, to take away someone else’s life, when she’s the one who had cancer.”
“That’s just it though,” Stefan interrupted.
“She was the one with the cancer, and it’s not fair because she’s the one with the kids.
She’s the one who’s gone through so much to be healed.
But you’re the one who’s right there. So, from Tabitha’s perspective, nothing is fair about this, and fair doesn’t really come into it when you’re in this frame of mind. ”
“And I understand her desperation,” Devon admitted. “Believe me that I do understand. What I don’t understand is how it’s okay to treat so poorly someone who has been there for her and her twins all this time.”
“It’s probably because of that very thing.
She probably figured she knows enough about you to do this,” Stefan suggested.
“And I know that sounds very nefarious, but it does take some connection, some agreement, for this to happen. And hear me when I say that the possession isn’t the easiest, so either the person to be possessed is weaker, even mentally unstable, or there is already some agreement, which is what I presume is happening in this instance. ”
“It’s just too unbelievable,” Devon declared, staring at the phone. “I just want all this to go away.”
“Of course you do.”
“No, you don’t understand. Right now, I’m too petrified to even go home.”
After a moment of silence, Stefan continued. “I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. If you had another place to go, at least it would keep you somewhat safe.”
“And what am I supposed to do with the kids?” she asked, with a broken cry. “I mean, they’re there, expecting me to come home.”
“Yes, expecting you to be what you’ve always been,” he declared. “Easy to get along with, amiable, and ready for them to take advantage.”
Camden watched Devon close her eyes, and her shoulders collapsed.
He wanted to object, to say that was below the belt, but he also knew that Stefan would say that sometimes you had to speak the truth in a way that would hit home, in order for people to get it.
Camden figured that this was probably Stefan’s way of trying to accomplish that.
Immediately he could sense Stefan in his mind, with an agreeable nod.
Camden looked over at Devon, then asked, “Were you the person she would have rolled over in life?”
She went pale at the thought of it. “If you’re asking if I’m easy to get along with, I’m certainly not a person who makes waves, so yes,” she admitted. “But my interpretation of easy to get along with versus being taken grossly advantage of is very different.”
“Good,” Camden muttered. “I’m glad to hear that, though it may not be different enough.”
“No, and I’m starting to understand that’s exactly what it is, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to come to terms with this right now,” she snapped. “The kids are sound asleep. I’m over here, and my backyard is full of ghouls, apparently because these kids opened a doorway.”
Neither Camden nor Stefan could argue with any of that.
She continued. “A doorway that’s absolutely blowing my mind, and they did it with the intention of helping their mother come back to take over my body. Do I want to see the kids? No, I do not. Do I understand why they’re doing this? Of course.”
Camden kept an eye on the yard, still shimmering.
Devon continued with her tirade. “I do understand, but now, every moment we’ve spent together, good or bad, was just an act on their part as they bided their time until their mother could come back.
That also goes along with some of the meanness I’ve been seeing as time goes on too, and she has yet to return.
They’re disappointed. They’re desperate.
They’re angry, probably because everything that she told them would happen has not, and now we have these ghouls in the background instead of Tabitha.
I’m sure that the twins are even more on edge now, waiting for her to suddenly appear, and then what?
Am I just supposed to roll over? When she arrives, do I then lie down and let her take over my body? Is that how this works?” she cried out.
Camden didn’t know how to help her and just let her get all her thoughts out.
“I mean,” she stared up at Camden, “I just—”
“I get it,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m absolutely floored and have no idea what I’m supposed to do from here.”
Stefan spoke back up. “We don’t have answers and don’t know what the game plan needs to be, but we do know what the intended end result is, so that is something we can work with.” Stefan hesitated and added, “Camden, is there any particular reason you couldn’t stay at her place overnight?”
“No, I’m fine with that,” he replied, “and I presume we’re doing that because she still needs somebody to look after the kids.”
“Look after them?” she snapped, staring at him. “You do realize these are the very same kids who are destroying everything around us?”
“Yes, but we don’t know whether they’re doing that on their own or because they’re being forced.”
Pivoting to stare at him, she snorted. “Do you really think they’re being forced?
” She just looked at him and shook her head.
“No, they want this to happen. … Honest to God, I don’t know what I will do about any of this, but, if either of you has any answers or any ideas, feel free to share them, because, yeah, I still need to look after them—or look out for them coming after me,” she snapped, as she turned to look back at her house.
She frowned. “That just brings me back something Toby said when we first looked at the house, meeting the Realtor here.” She repeated it to both men.
Stefan replied, “Oh, now that’s fascinating.”
“Fascinating isn’t exactly what I want to hear right now,” she murmured.
“No,” he agreed, “I’m sure you don’t. Camden, is there any way you can get a history of the house? You’ve lived next door a long time.”
“I have lived here a long time,” he confirmed. “Yes, I can look into it and get whatever information is available. Do you really think that house has something to do with this plan?”
Devon added, “There has to be a reason for choosing that location. Tabitha died in the hospital, and she’s connected to the twins, as she would have that connection through birth.
Yet it seems as if Toby chose that house,” she stated, turning to Camden.
“And now I’m feeling as if this has been going on around me for a very long time, and I’ve just been blind to it. ”