27. Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-seven
Remington James
T he scrutiny of everyone, the silence from Uncle Skip, even the worry in Natalie’s eyes is getting to me. I hate it, but it is what it is. I promised myself to love loudly, give my heart completely to each of my guys. They deserve at least that much. Then I took a breath, stepped back and felt like I’d fallen off a high wire. Absorbed into an impossible situation. Grady leaves soon, Cal will be working a couple hours away, Charlie wants to leave, and Wilder’s life is hundreds of miles from here.
My problems are multiplying.
My heart is breaking just thinking about it.
“It might end up just being us, guys.” I look at my animal menagerie. Droolius whines near the door to be let out, which is normal when he spends any extended time inside. He’s either part gypsy or very disturbed by the mounting weirdness in our cabin.
Yesterday, Wilder brought my runaway dog back, he stepped inside for two minutes before he gave me a shocked look. Saying that the energy was dreadful. Angry bad. Telling me that it didn’t feel that way a week ago. Just made him feel foggy or tired.
Things have been moved, usually destroyed.
The kitchen window is as possessed as the bathroom light.
I’d laugh at it all if it wasn’t starting to seem like an ugly omen. I’ve stopped mentioning any of it to the guys, they all insist I leave to stay with them. Which I won’t do, because it means picking between them.
As I’m making my way to the bedroom, Droolius starts to run circles around me barking, Squiggles makes his chirpy noises, and the frogs are making their chew toy squeaky sounds that I normally find cute. Right now, the effect of all of them sounding off gives me goosebumps. Followed by a choking feeling, my vision darkening around the edges. I start to feel like I’m being pressed down.
Frozen in place, the feeling that I’m being smothered only intensifies as my vision continues blackening out.
Then it stops just as quickly as it began.
I can’t get out of the cabin fast enough.
My froggos are stuck inside their terrarium, but Squiggles and Droolius are outside. One in the basket next to me on the dock, the other now chasing a wayward balloon from a party they had at the lodge. If what happened to me just now was even a fraction of what Wilder deals with when he has his seizures and visions, I’m worried about the strain he’s under. I’m terrified. What in the ever-blasting hell was that?
I go over what I know, which seems all too little.
Carlotta didn’t believe the drownings were unrelated or accidental,
The residents of Lake Hollow believe all sorts of different things: hauntings, curses, that Wilder did it, that it was all just accidents.
Hemminger is investigating Susanna Ross’ drowning again. The case reopened because of information Carlotta gave her family.
The suspect list (not viable options in my opinion) all have connections to the victims–the girls, unsure if any exist with the boys.
The necklace was in the possession of the girls.
There have been several instances of vandalism, threatening behaviors, outright being knocked upside the head at the Funpark. The cabin has had creepy things happening almost since we arrived.
Lake Hollow claimed the lives of eight.
Drowning… where water enters the lungs and impairs the person's ability to breathe.
Laying on my stomach near the end of the dock, my hand swirling through the water, I can’t stop going over it all.
What are we all missing?
Blinking awake, I can’t remember what day it is, much less where I am until I hear the water lapping against the dock posts. In my hurry to sit up and find Squiggles and Droolius I knock over the basket, swinging into Wilder who grabs me to keep me from falling in. “Jeezus, definitely a no flailing zone,” I mutter to myself while falling onto him.
“I would avoid taking naps on your dock,” he says with the smirk that makes me both incredibly turned on and growly. Helping me adjust so I’m sitting in his lap and not at risk of going in the lake, he adds, “Master Droolius is secured in my cabin with a treat, your rodent is right here.” He points to my Squiggles in his tipped basket. “I have no idea what you did with your potato look-alikes.”
Crawling to my Squigs feeling muddled, I notice how much the sun has sunk in the sky. I blame the adrenaline dump from what happened earlier this afternoon. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. It must’ve been the aftereffects of the freaking terror.” Recounting what happened in the cabin earlier, I see his mood shift and his face looks more concerned as I finish up, “... flat out shooketh.”
Wilder tells me that he had a vision this morning. He was at Lakeside Park, his throat felt constricted like he was being choked. A voice was saying ‘Remember… remember…’
Coming out of the seizure, he felt a sweeping loss. A deep sense of grief. Weighed down with emotion he laid on the floor of his bedroom bawling.