Chapter 9
June
It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up feeling like death warmed over.
I knew the feeling before I opened my eyes—burning under my skin, the way my lungs ached for air, the way my heart thudded against my ribs like it wasn’t quite sure it was supposed to keep going. Everything was too quiet…too still.
Then—noise.
The beep of the heart monitor. The rasp of the oxygen machine.
Only then did the pain come.
A slow, pulsing throb bloomed in my wrist with every heartbeat. It was bandaged, immobilized…but still there.
And so was Silas.
Sleeping in a chair to my left, his head tipped back, brow furrowed and arms crossed. He’d definitely had a shower; his hair was still damp.
What a fucking day.
I wanted to say something, but my mouth felt like it was full of sand. I tried to swallow—tried again. The second time worked, just barely. I shifted a little, and the movement made the bed creak, the sheets rustle.
His eyes snapped open.
Silas straightened fast, like his body was still in fight mode. He didn’t speak at first—just leaned in, eyes locked on mine, waiting like he didn’t trust what he was seeing.
Then his hand found mine. My good one.
“June,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “You’re awake.
I blinked slowly, trying to smile. “Hey.”
He let out a rough breath, his thumb brushing across the back of my hand. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
His mouth tugged into a smile at my answer, but the worry was still there in the corners of his eyes. He sat back in the chair, just slightly.
“Makes sense,” he said after a beat. “You were ramblin’ about some light. Thought I was gonna lose you right there in the truck. Scared the hell out of me.”
“For what it’s worth,” I whispered, “I scared me too.”
He let out a short breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “Got into it with Rhett, nearly drove us off the road twice. Walked in here like fuckin’ Tarzan and refused to put on a shirt until I was sure you were okay.”
“Wow,” I said. “You went on a clothing strike for me. Chivalry is not dead.”
Silas huffed a laugh, but it didn’t stick. His eyes flicked back to my bandaged wrist, and his thumb kept moving over my other hand—like he was reassuring himself I was still here.
The silence stretched.
“Silas?” I said gently.
He looked up. “I don’t know where it came from. Nobody does.”
I frowned. “What?”
“The snake.” He shifted, leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Animal control came after I got here, house was unlocked. They said they found the guts, the blood…but there was no corpse. And they didn’t find any evidence of it livin’ there either—looked under the church, through the walls, the crawlspace, attic.
Nothing. No shed skin, no droppings, no trail… just gone.”
I watched him, but couldn’t get a read on him.
“I thought maybe it came in to escape the heat, through the vents or somethin’,” he said. “But that don’t make sense. It was a timber rattler, not common out here…and it was in my bed, June. Curled up neat like it was waitin’…but instead of gettin’ me, it got you.”
His voice cracked on that last part.
“You think someone put a snake in your bed?” I asked quietly.
Silas stood up, paced to the end of the bed and back…reached up to swipe his hand down his face.
“Not someone,” he said. “Something. The curse, maybe…or Amelia, back to take me down with the same thing that killed her.”
I went still. “She…she was bitten by a snake?”
He froze like he hadn’t meant to say it—like the words had slipped free before he could snatch them back. And yeah, maybe someone else would’ve thought he sounded crazy…but I didn’t.
I sat up a little straighter, ignoring the fire in my wrist. “Silas.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes flicking anywhere but me. “It was a freak accident. That’s what they told me. She was out working a back trail in the park, alone. Got bit in the leg. Tried to make it back to her truck, but…they found her too late.”
My stomach turned.
“You know this isn’t your fault, right?” I asked.
Silas didn’t say anything.
I shifted a little, adjusting the blanket. “Silas…it was an accident.”
Even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure if I believed them—because on some level, I was confident it was my fault. Years of therapy and divinity school would never be enough to entirely shake off the guilt I’d been raised with—the feeling that, if you sinned, if you desired, you deserved to die.
Snakes were a symbol of the devil…and I’d been about to do something horribly, deliciously sinful with Silas Ward when I’d been bitten.
Silas sat back down, not meeting my eyes.
“Another freak accident,” he muttered. “June…I’ve heard all that shit before and I don’t fucking believe it. Even if it’s really an accident…it’s not. There’s somethin’ out there that will not allow me to be—”
He stopped short, running his hand down his face.
“To be what, Silas?” I asked.
Again, he didn’t answer.
I could see him cutting himself off from me in real time, closing doors, putting up barriers and laying down salt.
This was what he did; it was why he lived in the church parsonage all alone, why he hung ghost traps and painted sigils at thresholds, why he had copies of The Lesser Key of Solomon and Protection Rites.
Because Silas Ward didn’t believe in accidents.
Not after every love story in his family had ended in tragedy.
Not after his parents’ car accident.
Not after Amelia.
…and not after me.
I’d ministered to a lot of people over the years, set them at ease…but I didn’t know what to say now—because honestly, I wondered if there was something to this. Snakes didn’t just end up in people’s beds. A phrase came unbidden to my mind, almost slipping past my lips:
In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke this spirit of lust, this spirit of deception, this Jezebel, this witch, this want—
I flinched.
I hadn’t thought of it in years…that prayer, an exorcist’s chant deep in the muggy, mosquito-ridden reaches of southwestern Louisiana. Didn’t realize it still lived inside me, coiled up like the snake that bit me.
Had I entertained the enemy? Had I dressed immodestly? Had I thought about touching myself?
“Silas,” I said, uncomfortable now—finding myself in the position of someone who needed counsel, rather than being the one with advice. I was struggling…and he was making it worse. “I need to tell you something before you say anything else.”
He met my eyes. Listened.
My stomach churned.
“I um…” I trailed off, stumbling over my words, hating myself for it. “I grew up in a church—well, a cult—like Amelia’s family. I was depressed, like a lot of teenage girls. And when I was fifteen, my parents took me to an exorcist.”
His face didn’t change, but I saw the shift in his eyes—the same shift I’d seen in the handful of other people I’d told about this. Horror—not at me…but at the weight I was carrying.
Still, it felt like it was about me.
“They asked if I had kissed a boy. I said no. But they didn’t believe me, and they kept asking, and they…they kept me tied up and starved me and…”
I stopped again, shuddering. Silas reached out and took my hand, but I pulled it away because I couldn’t stand the idea of someone touching me right now.
“June,” he whispered, but he gave me my space.
“They said I was full of demons and that I was dangerous, that my thoughts weren’t my own,” I continued.
“I don’t even remember the worst of it, just waking up on the floor with rug burns on my face and bruises on my arms and my mom telling me I was healed.
” I let out a laugh, but it sounded wrong.
“But I wasn’t healed. I was just…empty. And the exorcism didn’t fucking work, because I tried to kill myself when I was twenty-one. ”
The monitor beeped a little faster, Silas’s eyes darting toward it. He shifted. “June, you should get some more rest.”
“Stop,” I said, locking eyes with him. “No, you need to hear this. Because…I’ve listened to you, but now it’s your turn to listen to me, Silas. You keep talking about this snake like it was a punishment, a warning, and some stupid, buried part of me thinks you’re right.”
His eyes softened. He opened his mouth to reply, but I kept going.
“I’ve done too much work to heal from that,” I said.
“I’ve built my life around unlearning that fucking…
that poison. I believe in embodiment, in joy, in grace.
I believe desire is holy and that touch can be sacred and that our bodies aren’t shameful.
But when I kissed you, and that snake bit me, it was like being fifteen all over again. Like God turned Their face away.”
Silas exhaled like I’d hit him in the gut.
“I wanted you, Silas,” I said, not looking away.
“I still want you. And I don’t regret that.
I can’t. But now I’m sitting here with poison in my blood and pain in my body and shame I thought I buried coming back like a ghost with my mom’s voice.
And I just…I need to say it out loud before it eats me alive. ”
The silence that followed wasn’t gentle. It buzzed like the air before a storm, like something unseen was listening.
“I don’t know what I believe about the curse,” I said. “Or fate. Or protection rituals. Or Amelia. I just know that until we can figure this out…we should probably pump the brakes, right?”
Silas went still.
“I’m not saying never,” I added. “Just…my body’s still catching up to what happened and my head is a mess.”
He nodded once, standing up.
“Right,” he said. “Sure.”
I could tell he was retreating—not trying to be cold, but being cold all the same. And Silas? He built walls fast.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I tried. “Silas—I still want to help with the church, we’re friends—”
“It’s fine,” he said, not looking at me. “I know. You don’t have to explain…been through enough already tonight.”
“Silas,” I said, catching him before he could walk out the door. “Promise me we’ll talk when I get out of here.”
He looked over his shoulder, a sad smile on his lips. “I promise,” he said.
Then he was gone.
I stared at the empty chair he’d left behind.
His flannel was still draped over the arm of it, the scent of him lingering in the room. I could smell him even now. Feel the ghost of his hand still cupping mine, thumb smoothing circles into my skin.
And Lord have mercy…I wanted him.
Even after all that.
Even after the panic and the guilt and the voice in my head that still sometimes whispered Jezebel when I wore red lipstick or thought about sex with the wrong kind of man in the wrong kind of place.
Even after the poison and the dreams and the snake in the bed, I still felt it—the pull of him.
Not just his body, though that was part of it.
The strength of his hands.
The way his jaw flexed when he was trying not to feel something.
The way he looked at me like I wasn’t a burden or a project but a woman.
I still felt it in my chest. In my bones.
In my thighs for fuck’s sake.
And yet—I’d told him to stop.
Because I had to. Because I meant it.
Because my body didn’t know the difference between sacred and shameful yet, and neither did my heart.
He’d only been gone a few minutes when I heard a knock on the door, then a familiar face poked through: Delilah, looking exhausted and a little worse for wear, lacking any of the full face of makeup she usually wore.
She pushed the door open with her shoulder, balancing two coffees and a tote bag that looked like it hadn’t been emptied in a decade.
Her eyeliner was smudged like she’d cried and wiped it with the back of her hand, and her red hair was pulled up in one of those aggressive buns that said don’t fuck with me louder than words ever could.
“Hey, sunshine,” she said, her voice gravel-thick from a sleepless night. “You look like hell.”
I let out a weak laugh. “Ditto.”
She crossed the room and handed me one of the coffees without asking if I was allowed to have it. “Don’t tell the nurse. It’s probably against some protocol or whatever, but I figured if the venom didn’t kill you, a little caffeine can’t hurt.”
I took it gratefully.
Delilah didn’t sit. She hovered. Checked the monitor like she knew what it meant. Then glanced toward the door, frowning.
“You gonna tell me what happened between you two?” she asked.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah…eventually.”
Delilah gave me a long, assessing look, then let it go—for now. She set her tote bag down with a thud and finally dropped into the chair Silas had left behind, one leg crossed over the other, boots scuffed and one earring missing.
“Ran into the doctor out in the hall,” she said. “They want to keep you one more night. Monitor the swelling, make sure your lungs stay clear.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
“I’ll come back tomorrow to take you home.”
I blinked. “So…we’re officially roommates now?”
She nodded. “Spare room is all yours, as long as you want it. I changed the sheets, ran a protection charm over the door just in case, aired the place out. It’s quiet. You’ll have space.”
Tears sprang to my eyes out of nowhere. Not panic this time—just relief.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Delilah gave me a look that was half fierce, half fond.
“Of course. You’re mine now. I’m keeping you.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “You collect strays?”
“Only the mouthy ones with trauma and great taste in shoes.”
We sat in silence after that, the kind of silence that didn’t demand anything, that only good, old friends could pull off.
I sipped the coffee she brought me, feeling it settle in my chest. Outside the window, the sky had started to lighten, the darkest part of night softening into the first hint of morning.
That meant I’d been here for almost twelve hours…and I wasn’t going to be discharged until tomorrow?
This had been serious.
I could’ve died.
Delilah rose a few minutes later, squeezed my shoulder, and said, “Sleep. I’ll be back at noon.”
And then she was gone too.
I leaned back against the pillows, alone again but not lonely. The coffee was cooling in my hand. My wrist still ached. My body still felt foreign.
But for the first time since the bite, I wasn’t spiraling.
I was still here.
I set the coffee aside, pulled the flannel from the arm of the chair, and pressed it to my chest.
Then I closed my eyes…and I prayed.
For Silas.
For Amelia.
For me.