Chapter 3
SAGE
Darkness follows, swallowing us both, despite the lamp’s glow, leaving me with the impression of a man too agonizingly beautiful to be my sister’s killer, and a burning desire to scream.
His mouth on mine is consuming.
That’s the only word I have for it. It’s unexpected and unwelcome; his teeth tear into me, his lips hard yet soft, burn me into submission. His delicious cologne—cedar, leather, and something darker—invades my senses, making my insides coil and my heart thunder inside my chest.
So much so that I surrender for a few seconds.
The only kisses I’ve had before this were clumsy ones that felt awkward from beginning to end. And lasted too long.
Not like this, where it’s sharp and intruding, where every part of me is paralyzed, yet pliant. Where I’m pinned down, and all I can feel is how solid he is, and all I can taste is his dominance burying me alive, as well as the sweet tang of copper.
A low moan escapes me, as heat spreads through me like an inferno where before was nothing. He growls in response, at least that’s what it sounds like…
Feels like.
It’s like being devoured.
Then it dawns on me. I can taste pennies—there’s blood in my mouth.
I scream into his mouth.
He jerks back, staring down at me with insidious green eyes, blazing at me, which quickly fade to a hard frost.
“I thought…you were her.”
I stare in the dark, too stunned to speak. There’s blood on his lips, and it’s not mine. On his neck, his cheek, spattered across his white shirt. How could I not see it before?
Because he’s a monster.
A feeling of utter terror returns, and along with it, the hate-fuelled resolve I’ve held on to for so long, spreading over my body, cold and steady, stitching me back together. It helps me find my voice.
“I get told that a lot now she’s dead.” The words slip out, barely a whisper.
Something heated flickers behind his eyes, and then it’s gone. “She’s dead?” His grip on me tightens. “How?”
“S-She fell,” I repeat exactly what I was told.
“An accident?”
He doesn’t know? Frantically, I nod my head because I’m suddenly not sure I should be telling the suspect anything. I’m supposed to be investigating him, not feeding him details.
But his eyes flatten. “I see. My—” He averts his gaze. “My condolences.”
“C-can you let me go now?” I sound ready to fall apart. Not like me at all, then.
He frowns, his gaze still averted, stuck on something around my neck. “Not until you tell me where you got that.” He almost spits the word that.
I glance at the necklace I’m wearing. It’s the one Nell gave me.
The memory of her leaving swarms before my eyes. The string of pearls she never took off was left on the bed with a Post-it stuck to it.
For protection.
“Nell gave it to me.”
“Right.” He doesn’t seem convinced.
“She said it was for protection,” I add, more like a prayer.
Something flashes across his face, something I can’t quite read, as though his mind is elsewhere. His fingers brush my collarbone as he strokes over the pearls around my throat. A pretty noose he could easily choke me with…
For a moment, neither of us moves. Outside crackles with something that could be lightning, but I can’t breathe, let alone see.
“There’s no such thing.” Severin, finally, grits out, pulling his hand away.
I don’t know what to say to that, and then it doesn’t matter. He releases my wrists and moves back from the bed, a look of disgust marring his perfect face, jaw clenched as though he wants to say something more but doesn’t.
I sit up slowly, eyeing the door. “I’ll go—”
“No.” I freeze. “Stay here. I’ll sleep elsewhere.”
I want to leave, be anywhere but here. But he doesn’t give me a choice. He turns and stalks out. The sound of the door banging closed is enough to wake the dead.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Breathing hard, I sit in shock for a long time after, goosebumps prickling at the bare skin of my arms. I know I should lock the door, but I can’t make myself move.
After a while, I force myself to, securing the door by sticking a chair under it because the lock obviously doesn’t work, I catch myself in the mirror.
Nell’s necklace has slipped free of my silken top, gleaming dully against the dark bruises beginning to imprint around my throat.
A disheveled girl with brown hair and hazel eyes, looking pale as the pearls around her neck, stares back.
Did he really not know she was dead? No, of course, he knows!
He’s lying.
He was covered in blood.
Whose blood?
A ragged sob sticks in my throat, seeking to escape. I don’t let it. Not yet. Not until I’ve buried myself under the covers. Only then do I allow the tears to come.
Killing that man is going to be harder than I ever imagined.
I survived the night.
Though I didn’t sleep a wink after Severin left, not even with a chair shoved against the door.
The storm raged hard until morning like a rave that didn’t want to end.
Mrs Oakley wasn’t kidding about the pipes, either.
They banged all night long like the house was falling down around me.
I could have sworn someone was pulling Grayfleet apart brick by brick.
I stayed under the covers and refused to come out until the room was light and the birds started singing. Only then did I fall fast asleep.
When I wake up, it feels late, but without a watch or a phone, I can’t tell. No one has come to get me, yet, so I take my time putting the clothes back on I wore yesterday, thankfully no longer damp from the rain after drying over one of the chairs.
As I fix my appearance in the mirror, taming my wild mane of hair, the girl in its reflection looks haunted, with shadows beneath her eyes, her lips bitten raw, and one hand pressed to her throat as if she’s checking for a pulse.
A split second is all it takes for Nell’s ghastly pale face to superimpose over mine.
Don’t you look just like me? Her voice curls through my thoughts, amused and cruel. Except I’m dead and you’re next.
I wondered when she would show up again. She’s been popping in more than usual lately, like a garden robin, bright red with a warning for the winter, only more gruesome.
The first time I saw her was less than a day after she died. Her soft, sweet voice came into my dreams, urging me to wake up. I gasped, bolting upright. And there she was, watching me.
I screamed until she vanished.
The next time I saw her, she stood at the corner of my room, dripping wet, squelching as she stalked toward me. The darkness was suffocating, but her realness clawed at the sanity of my mind and ate away at my bones. After I turned on the light, I didn’t dare close my eyes again.
Now, she haunts me everywhere.
Usually, I don’t mind.
I like that she’s with me. She’s the only sane one in the madness of what my life has become now that I’ve taken her place, stepped into her shoes. But actually seeing her here, where she died, isn’t helping.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Not real. She’s not real.
But her voice won’t go away.
You let him kiss you.
Because he thought I was her. He didn’t even believe me when I said I wasn’t. And why wouldn’t he? Nell and I were practically interchangeable growing up. Until I was ill more often, and then everyone forgot I even existed. Honestly, if there’s a ghost here, at Grayfleet, it’s me.
That seems to placate her, and when I open my eyes, Nell is gone.
A knock at the door snaps me out of it. I stand there for a few seconds, staring at it, my heart thudding like it’s off to the races. I’m too scared to open it in case it’s Severin.
But then I hear Mrs Oakley’s voice, muffled but clear enough through the wooden door.
I open it, and she’s there, smiling, though her too-bright, too bushy-tailed mask nearly slips off when she sees what I’m wearing.
With her perfectly straight hair and sweeping linen trousers and pressed shirt, I do feel sloppy next to her in the same dress I wore yesterday, but it can’t be helped.
“Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll take you over to your room. Master Troy asked me to move you to the east wing.”
My heart jumps. “Wasn’t that part of the house that burned down in a fire?”
“It’s mostly the far side of the building that’s still under construction. Your room is safe.”
Safe. The word slips off her tongue like sweet honey. Nothing is safe here, I’m beginning to realize that. First, the demon in the bushes. And then Severin, choking me almost to death in his bed.
Kissing me.
I feel like I’m about to crack wide open. I need to get out of this room. I’m not staying here another night.
“Mr. Severin came into his room last night…” I tail off, unsure what to say next. Without thinking, I clutch the pearls around my neck like they can protect me. Nell would laugh if she could see me now. She would always say, I was such a pearl clutcher.
Mrs. Oakley’s mouth twists, gaze darting down to the necklace and then back up to my eyes. “Yes. Sorry about that. Master Troy came back from his hunting trip early. He never tells me these things. You must have got such a fright?”
I bite at my lip. “I was…startled.”
“Best we get you to your room? So you can settle properly?”
“Okay.” I give a little nod. “I’m ready to go now.” I make a move to collect my things and then hesitate. “Oh, did my suitcase arrive?”
“I asked Elias to look for it, but he couldn’t find it. Are you sure you brought one?”
“Yes, I did, and a vanity.” Something gnaws in the pit of my stomach. It could be hunger. I hope it is.
“Oh, well, I’ll see if he can take another look.” She waits while I grab my toiletries and pajamas. She’s furiously typing something on her phone, a scowl on her face, when I emerge.
“Is everything alright?” I ask her.
Her head snaps up, and she replaces her frown with a very fake-looking smile. “Yes, of course,” she says, sounding tense and not at all alright.
Mrs Oakley leads me down a narrow corridor to a set of stairs at the back of the house.