Chapter 9 #3
“She was nearly buried alive while she slept.”
“Did you have to resuscitate her?”
I winced, remembering the second I spent frozen in panic. Jonah had to wait for me, needing instructions. And Wilson had called from downstairs, desperate for an update. All the while Octavia had been unresponsive, her skin as cold as the sheets she’d lain in.
I’d almost lost her. And while everyone waited for me to figure it out, I couldn’t help but get covered in the stickiness of my self-doubt and the menacing voice in the back of my mind that repeated, if you were better, you could have prevented this.
Because I must have missed something in the assessment. There was no way a better hunter would have missed the ghost being strong enough to target a client with lethal force. I’d missed something and Octavia nearly paid for my mistake with her life.
I wouldn’t let it happen again.
“No. She was unresponsive for a couple of seconds but eventually started breathing. And talking. Coughed up some dirt. Not enough to convince her this haunting’s real, but enough to make me…” I swallowed, voice dipping out.
“Hey, hey.” Opal’s voice melted, reminiscent of the soothing tone our mother used after jobs gone wrong. “Deep breath.”
“I’m fine.” I almost snapped. An emotional hunter should always be pulled off a job. That was the only Guild rule I stood firmly by. But I couldn’t leave. I needed to see this through.
“Okay.” Opal gave me a beat to recover before moving on. “So, you’ve got a cat five on your hands?”
I hummed in affirmation.
“You haven’t done one of those since you were with us.”
I scratched the back of my neck, annoyed at how unprepared I felt. And how Opal seemed to second my evolving nerves.
“You’re in for a fight. Do you need backup?” she asked.
“Nico and December are on their way.” I started down the porch steps.
“Cute,” she said. “Now, do you need backup?”
I laughed. “We’ll be fine. I just…need to focus. Not let this noise get to me.”
“What noise?”
The trek toward the stable proved slipperier than the previous day. Thankfully, I maintained my balance and kept ownership of my shoes.
“Do you ever feel you’ve reached your peak while hunting?” I paused for a second and lowered my voice as if someone could hear me out here in the quiet, heavy morning. “Like you should move out of the way for someone else to do a better job?”
“No,” she said with little thought because, much like our other sisters, Opal knew who she was from the moment she’d taken her first breath. “Do you?”
“I was just considering existential questions for my next book,” I murmured.
“Sequel?” She was smiling again. A car door slammed shut on her end. “I can’t wait. You know I was obsessed with the first one.”
“Thanks, at least someone was.” Plenty of people loved it. But it was one person who didn’t, who elicited flutters in my stomach. Who knew being disliked could be more intriguing than being loved?
“Keep your location on for all of us.” An engine roared to life, competing with Opal’s next words. “And send me all the info you have on this ranch. I’ll look and see if I can catch anything that could speed up the process. For a fee, of course.”
“Send me your bill,” I teased.
“Talk soon,” Opal promised before hanging up.
I squished my way through the rest of the mud, making it to the stable with a throbbing ankle.
The air smelled of wet grass, horses, and hay.
Octavia closed Kat’s stall right as I walked in.
Sunlight glinted in through the open windows, setting her skin aglow.
Her brow was damp with sweat and morning dew.
She wiped it off with the back of her hand, the soft edge of her muscles pressing against her long sleeve.
The outline of her shoulder blades trapped my gaze as I wondered about the level of strength they must possess.
“Morning.” Her dry greeting nudged me back into the here and now.
I blinked, cheeks aflame. But Octavia hadn’t seemed to notice. Or maybe she didn’t care. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Great.” She didn’t make eye contact. Octavia’s quick movements around the stable held no hesitation. Her hands remained steady as she picked up a rake and started making piles of hay.
Her expression was as cold and hard as the day I met her. Last night’s happenings may as well have been a mirage. I suppose disbelief had its perks.
“Great,” I repeated, allowing uncertainty to mold my tone. I claimed a stool by the door to relieve the weight on my feet.
Octavia nodded in confirmation. She rested the rake down, moving on from the piles to retrieve a saddle and blanket draped over the stall door.
It didn’t look like the floor cleaning job was complete, but what did I know?
Octavia moved to a wooden bench, setting the saddle down and removing the blanket from underneath.
“Are those to hold you over?” Her eyes were trained on my already muddied boots as she passed by to toss the blanket in a bin. Her morning ride hadn’t stolen the hints of spicy soap and whatever oils she used to keep her locs soft. I shifted on the stool, finding solace in the smell I craved.
“Nope, these are the only boots I have.” I clicked my heels together. “They’re good boots.”
“They’re heels.”
“It’s a block heel,” I countered.
“How does that make it any better?”
“Eons better than a stiletto. I can run in them.”
She raised a brow as I mimed running.
“When my ankle gets better, of course,” I added. “We can race and I’ll show you they’re as capable as they are stylish.”
The sides of Octavia’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t give the smile clearance. “I’ll hold you to it.”
She grabbed a toolbox and a box of nails. There were loose planks of wood in front of one of the empty stalls. Octavia set the toolbox down, grabbed a hammer, and went pounding the nails into the wood.
I frowned, gaze jumping from the hay to the unwashed blanket and her long fingers wrapped around a nail.
“I know it’s early and you’re busy.” I stood up, planning on getting closer, but her narrowed gaze gave me pause.
“You should chill out on that ankle,” she chided. “And go into town later to get proper footwear.”
“Sure, that’s an option.” I continued forward, careful not to limp. “In the meantime, let’s talk. Process things.”
“There’s nothing to process.” Octavia turned her back on me and resumed hammering.
I leaned against Kat’s stall, and she peeked her head out, offering it for me to pet. She exhaled a hot breath onto my cheek when I made contact.
“Well, I have plenty.” I scratched Kat’s forehead. “How about you help me out?”
Octavia’s jaw stiffened. She dropped her hammer to the ground and went to an industrial sink full of brushes. The faucet spat out steaming water, and Octavia poured dish soap onto the brushes, scrubbing them together. As the clouds of steam rose, the scrubbing became more intense.
“I want to start with an apology.” I gave Kat a final pat before moving closer to the sink. Octavia didn’t move. I could barely detect the rise and fall of her chest.
“Last night shouldn’t have ended like that.”
“Like you reading me to sleep?” She raised a brow, glancing my way.
“Yeah. See, I prefer to offer bedtime stories after the third date.”
“And look at little ol’ me, I got two. You know how to make a woman feel special.”
My nerves were abuzz. Octavia’s quips had lost their biting edge and offered something teasingly sweet. I scrambled to think of something witty to say back, not expecting her willingness to flirt without an undercurrent of disdain. I was at a loss, a rare occurrence that left me scratching my head.
“The combination of the shoe in the ground.” I gently guided us toward the more dire topic because that was all I could offer right now.
Octavia leaned her head back for a second, groaning softly.
I paused at the sound of it, having to look away from the curve of her parted mouth to finish properly.
“And your accounts of your employees’ injuries on site were red flags I didn’t take seriously enough. It won’t happen again,” I promised in a hard voice. “To assure that doesn’t happen, we need to be on the same page. My job is to make sure you’re in the right headspace.”
Her forehead wrinkled, unable to hide her intrigue. “And how are you going to do that?”
“When the rest of my team gets here, they’ll delve into investigating everything there is to know about this ranch and the people who have walked on it,” I said. “My job will be to learn about you.”
“I told you, I haven’t pissed anyone off—”
“No, I know.” I held up my hands, trying to show her we were on the same side.
“I’m learning about you so that we can work on a better way for you to manage your fear and stress.
This ghost’s got its sights on you. What you experienced last night was more than an oven burn or an ankle twist. This thing tried to bury you and in doing so, it’s planted a promising seed of fear. It’ll feed off it if you let it grow.”
“I’m not…” She sighed and wiped under her nose with the back of her hand. “Going to let it grow. Nightmares aren’t going to keep me from running this place. I can promise you that.”
“Good.” I smiled. “I can anchor with that.”
Octavia’s brows met in the middle. “Anchor?”
“It’s an old saying. Basically, it means I’m the person who’s going to hold you accountable. My job on most sites is making sure clients don’t let fear grow. I’m by their side, your side, through it all. An emotional support human, if you will.”
She studied me, those dark eyes softening like they had the night before on the couch. Like they had when I promised not to leave.
“You are the woman I thought you were, by the way,” I murmured.
Octavia bit on her bottom lip for a second, shy and unsure. “What woman do you think I am, Rae?”
“One who doesn’t back down from a fight.”