16. Chapter 16
I sped down the highway until I couldn’t feel him breathing down my neck. Once I couldn’t sense him anymore, relief and something akin to disappointment washed over me.
I turned on the overhead light to check my shadow for any weird behavior, but it was what I expected. Good.
Kind of.
The breath I’d been holding for countless miles came out like a disappointed sigh instead of the relief it should have been. My bones complained as I loosened my grip on the wheel.
I didn’t have the mental capacity to try to untangle that fuckery, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I let the loneliness seep in. It highlighted the emptiness inside me in a way that I hated.
A couple of days of a shadow following me gave me a taste of something I couldn’t expect from something like him.
Not unless I wanted everything else to crumble.
The kid’s body on the snapped spikes of wood filled my mind, making me swallow loudly in the silence. This was the best decision for everyone.
Still a huge chunk of me complained that it wasn’t the best choice for me. I spent two more hours arguing with that logic, until there was no way he could reach me from Dudleytown.
Even though I wanted to drive back as soon as I put my truck in park outside the only hotel in town.
Are you sure he’s gone?
I double-checked my shadow again when I hopped out of the truck, standing there a long minute, waiting for anything to signal that he was still with me. When I couldn’t see anything suspicious, I entered the building.
“Room, please.” My request came out harsher than I intended as the irrational part of me argued that this was too far away from him.
It’s not far enough, the other part of me argued.
I ended up coughing to pretend the attitude I’d given the young clerk was an allergy issue. I handed my fake ID and a wad of cash over as an apology. The woman at the counter didn’t ask any questions and started checking me in.
A child I assumed was her daughter lay on a cot, watching cartoons with sleepy eyes. Her big brown eyes lazily drifted to me before her eyes widened in fear.
I whirled around, looking for any signs of him, but my shadow still looked like it should. No lights flickering. Nothing was there.
“Do you see something I don’t?” I asked her.
The girl yanked the covers over her head and whimpered. The clerk sighed in defeat. “This place is haunted, and she’s… sensitive. It’s not you. Do you want a refund?”
“No.” I smiled knowingly. Old buildings always had something hanging around.
I walked over and squatted down beside her, pulling a rosemary smudge stick from my bag and lit it.
She gasped as if she felt the difference and poked her head out.
“When you get scared, ask to burn rosemary. It will make the spirits rest.”
“Then why are there still two things here?” she whispered softly.
My stomach dropped and my heart sped up. Did Abiel find a way to stretch this far? Why hadn’t I felt him the entire ride?
And…
“Two?” I stuttered, revealing exactly how shaken I was. I fought to keep the hand holding the rosemary from trembling.
There couldn’t be two. I was barely holding one back. Don’t panic.
“Lindsey!” The clerk scolded her.
“One is a giant black shadow monster on four legs, claws like knives, and wild spiky hair. It’s standing right over you.” She trembled. “He’s breathing down your neck.”
I swallowed. I wasn’t sure what he really looked like. I only knew what he wanted me to see. But a giant monster breathing down my neck sounded about right.
No way.
“The other is outside, peeking around the corner at you. Like he doesn’t want anyone to notice him.” She moved her face as if she was struggling to see around the big ass monster blocking her view. “A man wearing a hat. I think he’s gone.”
A hat?
My mind went to that hunt I’d done right before I’d come home and my world fell apart. The box I’d left inside my house when I lit the whole thing on fire.
He’d been a simple, low level wraith, but he’d been wearing a hat when I caught him.
No. The flames and salt would have purified him. It couldn’t be him.
I checked behind me again, but I wasn’t too surprised when I came up empty once more, before glancing back at the girl, who was silently begging me to believe her.
Was she a medium? Did she really see something I couldn’t?
The unease grew, but I couldn’t let this shake me. Abiel couldn’t have followed me this far from his domain. I’d escaped. I’d deal with everything else later.
He’s not a ghost. You don’t know how far he can go.
I swallowed the rock in my throat. No. I didn’t know anything about him.
“They shouldn’t bother you,” I promised her. If something was following me, I’d be the one who paid for it.
“The monster is scary.” Tears filled her eyes as she tracked some movement I couldn’t see.
“They don’t want you. It’s me they want.”
Her face grew concerned. “Why?”
Violence breeds violence.
How did I warn this tiny witch not to seek out the things she sees?
That my family’s curse started five hundred years ago when a medium like her chased after things only she could see and played god with it.
“Because the monsters sense power inside me.” The power that brought them to life. The magic that made them able to step from the shadows and touch the real world.
The same Rinah energy that created the very first monster.
“Can they sense mine?” she asked with a frown on her cute little face.
I smiled at her, but it felt sad, even to me. She might not be a Rinah, but one day she’d mess up, probably without realizing it, and they’d come running.
Don’t end up like me.
I pulled a black obsidian stone from my bag and knotted it into a quick witch’s ladder necklace. Protect her. Please. “Not if you wear this.”
“You don’t wear one,” she pointed out as I tied it around her neck.
“I’ve chased after them too much. They already see me.” I stared at her, hoping she would understand what I meant. That my warning would stay in her mind for when she needed it.
“The monster is smiling.” Her voice shook. “His teeth are bigger than you are and blood drips from them.”
My heart pounded in my chest.
“Don’t look at it.” I gently guided her eyes shut. “And it won’t look at you.”
She pulled the blankets back over herself, but this time it wasn’t a child’s panic. It was a witch who knew the answer.
I walked over to the clerk and found her staring at the child with glassy eyes. “She’s been terrified ever since our parents died last year.”
A single-event imprint that changed the way her brain worked on a fundamental level. So she wasn’t born a witch, she became one. Poor thing.
“Thank you,” the woman said, holding out the card key. “For the peace you’ve given her.”
I accepted it, placing the still-smoking smudge stick in her hands. “The more she touches them, the more they’ll touch her. She’ll end up with monsters hovering over her, too.”
She nodded in understanding, accepting the rosemary without hesitation.
Something in the determination on her face reminded me of Esme’s protective nature. How when she was young, she was convinced she could protect everyone from the pain she’d experienced.
Was that why my mother left me behind to never be heard from again? Did she have something on her ass too? Perhaps she’d been trying to protect me.
Enough of that for the day.
It’s been a clusterfuck already, no need to dump leftovers onto my plate.
I stepped out of the office and made my way two doors down to my room. The street lights flickered up and down the street.
Fuck me.