Haunt: A Grim Reaper Romance (The Bound Ones Book 4)

by Tricia Barr

  I waited until they were out of sight before I crept down the stairs to hide in my car. As soon as my door was closed, and the overhead light dimmed, my tears broke out into a full-on cry. I cried for Smooth, cried for my heart that Killian just broke, and cried for my terror at whatever invisible creature was plaguing me. I cried for all the losses and all the betrayals that I had endured in my short seventeen years.

  I must have been weeping there for a half hour or so, long after Killian would have left to dispose of Smooth’s body. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Wherever I went, this dark presence would be able to find me, to hurt me. I didn’t want it to hurt those I loved, but I was also terrified of being alone.

  Convinced by my selfishness, my need for company, I went back to the home Carmella and I had made. The evil spirit had disappeared earlier when Carmella had come close, and that fact brought me hope that she would be safe, and that I might be safe as long as I was with her.

  “Lorelei?” she asked from the sofa, puzzled when I walked through the front. “Why are you back so soon? I thought you had a date?”

  “Yea well, the guy turned out to be a douchebag,” I said, plopping down on the couch beside her.

  “Oh, mi amor, I’m sorry,” she purred, wrapping her warm caramel arms around me. I melted into her embrace, needing her comfort right now more than she could ever know.

  “Can you stay home tonight?” I asked, my throat tightening with the tears I struggled to hold back. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Of course, sweetie,” she said, hugging me even tighter. Then she pulled back to look at me. “Tonight, I’m all yours. We’ll curl up on the couch with ice cream and watch sappy love movies.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said, managing a smile for her.

  She hopped off the couch and came back with a big bowl of ice cream covered with caramel and chocolate syrup for each of us. Once the first movie started, I got out my phone to text Killian. Now that I had seen firsthand what his powers could do, I didn’t want him coming here. I needed to reject him while he was still far away…unloading Smooth’s body.

  I’M SICK, CAN’T GO OUT TONIGHT.

  He didn’t respond for about twenty minutes, and I knew it was because he was busy.

  R U SURE? I REALLY WANTED TO C U. CAN I BRING U SOME SOUP?

  NO, DON’T COME. I’LL B FINE, I replied.

  OK. LET ME KNOW WHEN UR FEELING BETTER.

  I put away my phone. As far as Killian was concerned, I was going to be sick for a very, very long time.

  Nothing and nowhere was safe when I was by myself.

  That night after Carmella went to bed, I took a shower, hoping the warm water would help me relax enough to sleep. I turned the water on as hot as I could stand it and stood under it for a long time, enjoying the feeling of disappearing into heat, of melting under the scalding water that ran down my body. Ah, there’s nothing quite as delicious as giving in to such heat. To feel your muscles contract as they struggle to escape, and then ultimately expand as they reluctantly submit was a wonderful feeling.

  I closed my eyes, finally feeling like sleep was calling my name. Just a few more minutes of this and then I can go to bed.

  Out of nowhere, something hard slammed into my hip. I buckled to the side, my balance abandoning me. My feet slipped on the wet porcelain tub beneath them, and I fell, my head smacking the tiled wall on its way down. Luckily my flailing hands caught hold of the shower curtain and stopped me from completing what could have been a fatal fall.

  I pulled myself upright, praying that the curtains would hold my weight. I clambered out of the tub, looking around for whoever had hit me. Had Smooth’s men found me after all? Had they come to avenge their boss?

  The bathroom was clouded with steam, but I saw no figure in the room with me. My head had been rocked by the wall, so my vision was a little blurry. Was that black smoke swirling with the steam on the floor?

  I blinked forcefully, rubbing the mist from my lashes. When I opened my eyes again, the blackness was gone, the room a den of brightly lit steam once again.

  The spot where my head kissed the wall smarted. I rubbed it, my fingers finding a bump there. I went to the mirror to take a look at it.

  My heart stopped and paralyzed the rest of my body with it, my foot halting mid-step.

  There was a message written in the fog on the mirror: “There’s no escape.”

  As I gaped at the letters fingered across the mirror’s fogged surface, cracks branched through it like a bolt of lightning, making me gasp and jump backward. My horrified reflection was distorted as it looked back at me.

  Before I could react any further, the light above my head glowed brighter, its electric hum growing louder. In an instant, it flooded itself with power and exploded, raining down tiny shards of glass over my wet scalp in the sudden darkness.

  I screamed, blindly grabbed my towel off the wall and ran out. In a panic, I sloppily dried myself and slapped on some PJs. Then I rushed into Carmella’s room and climbed into bed with her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked groggily, half asleep.

  “Bad dream,” I whispered. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  “Um-hmm,” she hummed before rolling over and slipping back into slumber.

  I pulled the covers up over my head and prayed for peace. But I could not sleep. I felt like a pre-hatched chick in a paper-thin shell, vulnerable to everything around me beyond my feeble coverings. And beyond that, an overwhelming sense of violation sickened my insides. This thing had attacked me in the most private setting, in my most intimate of states—naked. There were no boundaries that this evil would not cross to torment me.

  The message was clear. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to leave me alone. Ever. There was no escape.

  ***

  The following days, I made every effort to avoid being alone. I kept near crowds whenever I was on campus and only went to bathrooms that got tons of traffic. I made plans with Trixie for the weekend and coaxed her into doing homework with me on school nights. And I begged Carmella to let me sleep with her, telling her that her presence helped keep the nightmares at bay. She was worried about me, but this was the least frightening thing I could tell her. And I was far more worried than she was.

  When Tuesday came around, I went to the administration building and dropped Biology. I didn’t want to see Killian anymore. I wanted him gone from my world, and the first step to doing that was to remove myself from the one situation where I had to see him.

  I didn’t know what he was really up to. He clearly knew Smooth by the way they had talked to each other. Maybe Smooth had hired him and for whatever reason Killian turned on him. All I knew was that he was bad news. I knew I couldn’t get rid of him as easily as just dropping the class we shared. It would take more than that. It might take a more permanent solution. Maybe then all of this would stop. I was more and more convinced each day that he was the cause of the “hauntings”. But I wasn’t quite ready to consider killing him yet. He had slithered his way under my skin, into my head, into my heart, and as petrified as I was every second of every day, the thought of hurting him was still unbearable.

  Man, I was a mess!

  When I didn’t show up for class, he texted me. STILL SICK?

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I wanted to tell him off, or interrogate him, or scream obscenities at him, but he was too dangerous for all of that. If I upset him, he might turn his soul-sucking powers on me. End me rather than furthering his torture of my sanity. For now, the best thing to do was ignore him. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  He kept texting me all day, asking if anything was wrong and why I wasn’t responding. And I kept my fingers silent, eventually just leaving my phone in my room to vibrate by itself.

  Carmella and I stayed up late watching movies, and we fell asleep on the couch. She must have wandered into her bedroom at some point, because when I was awoken in the early morning, I was alone in the living
room.

  The fleece blanket I had cuddled up under was suddenly yanked off of me. My eyes popped open to see that I was again floating in midair, snuggled in the same ball position I had fallen asleep in hours ago. I hugged my knees tighter against myself, bracing for whatever impact was to come next.

  Those inky black tentacles had me surrounded. This time, they didn’t waste time teasing me with their slow slither. They lashed out at me from every direction, stinging my skin where they touched, like they were made of pure jellyfish venom. I recoiled away from them, my movements sending my limbs bouncing from one swarm of tentacles to another, as if I were a misshaped ping-pong ball.

  Then the world began to spin around me. Slow at first, and then faster and faster. But it wasn’t the world spinning. Impossibly, I was the one spinning. The smoke tentacles were a black tornado around me, licking me with their venom tongues and pushing me into an ever-faster twirl. My stomach clenched with nausea and my head reeled with vertigo.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that if I couldn’t see, the dizziness would be less intense. Fear reverted me to a helpless child. I just wanted to disappear, to fade away so the horrors of the world—and the afterworld—couldn’t touch me anymore.

  “Please, stop!” I pleaded softly to the black smoke that played dreidel with my body. “Please, if you’re going to kill me, then just get it over with!”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” a whisper hissed from the inky whirlwind that cocooned me.

  Those words, as quietly as they had been uttered, seeped into my soul, ensuring me that I was absolutely helpless to escape my tormentor.

  The spinning continued, and in the childish state to which I had been rendered, a fury ignited inside me, raw and consuming. I was not some demon’s plaything. I was a force to be reckoned with. The entirety of Vegas’ underground knew that, and it was time that the underworld knew it, too. I was given these powers for a reason, and none of it made any sense if that reason was for me to end up as a ghost’s prisoner. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  I welled up the anger inside me, tapping into my extra spiritual sense as a conduit for my anger’s release. When I let it out, I channeled all of it spiritually, pushing with the power of my soul.

  The inky smoke dissipated instantly, and I fell face-down onto the carpeted floor. I pushed my hands against the floor, bracing myself on my elbows until the dizziness subsided and my eyes stopped turning. The fall made me even angrier, and I internally dared that smoke to come back. I was ready for a fight. Re-oriented, I got to my feet and adopted a sparring stance.

  A banging on the front door made me jump about a foot off the ground. I spun around and narrowed suspicious eyes at the door. It was far too late at night for a friend to come by or a solicitor to be going around the neighborhood. Was this some supernatural trick? Bring it on!

  I stomped toward the door, unlocked it and swung it angrily open.

  Killian stood in the doorway, a frazzled look on his stupid handsome face. Of course, it was him. My psychic propulsion had dispelled his stupid ghost smoke, so now he was here to mess with me in person. Well, not this time.

  “You!” I hissed.

  “Lorelei, are you alright?” he asked, voice strangely hoarse. Was he panting?

  “Like you don’t already know,” I snarled. “I’m tired of your games. I won’t be your toy anymore. Go away, or I promise you will be sorry.”

  His wide eyes went flat gray, devoid of color, as he gave me a perplexed look. “You think I’m the one that’s been bothering you? Lorelei, I’m not the enemy here.”

  “Liar!” I shouted, and I released a spiritual blast at him that sent him flying backward.

  The force of my own power startled me, making me cover my mouth and stumble backward. But Killian didn’t see me falter because he was too busy landing on his perfectly sculpted butt. I regained my aggressive posture and stalked toward him.

  “If I ever see you again, I will kill you,” I vowed, in that moment meaning it. In that moment, whatever feelings he had tricked me into having for him were eclipsed by my outrage at being a victim.

  He was on the ground, holding himself up on his elbows. He looked up at me with a surprised, crushed look in those pretty eyes that were now a somber shade of blue. That look threateningly tugged at my heart, but I wasn’t going to give in to it this time. Nor ever again.

  I twirled around on my heel before he could see the quiver in my bottom lip, and I stormed back into the house and closed the door.

  I knew that wouldn’t be the end. I wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily. I should turn right back around and just kill him, end this here and now. Even if he killed me first, at least this would be over. But I just couldn’t make myself do it.

  So, since I had rejected the fight option of my fight-or-flight instinct, that left me with only one choice: run.

  I wasted no more time.

  I went first to Carmella’s room to take a peak and make sure all the raucous had not woken her. She was rolled over on her side and snoring softly. I smiled at the sound, knowing it meant she was sleeping peacefully, that the horrors that had been haunting me had not tainted her life. I was going to miss her so badly.

  I couldn’t stay here, and I couldn’t take her with me. Until I found a way to defeat Killian, Carmella would be safer with me far away from her.

  I hurried quietly into my room and quickly packed a bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a handful of cash. Then I scribbled up a goodbye letter for Carmella. I didn’t know what to write, but I couldn’t just disappear without a trace, or she would never stop looking for me. So, here’s what I ended up with:

  “Ran into some trouble, couldn’t stay here anymore. Don’t come looking for me. I’ll come back when it’s safe. I love you. --L.”

  I set it on the kitchen table in front of where she always sits, and I just stood there staring at it for several long seconds.

  It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be our happily ever after. We were free. We had escaped Luca’s world of crime and death. This was our fresh start, but the evils of my old life followed us here. Leaving was the best thing I could do.

  If Smooth’s men had sent Killian after us, then that’s where I had to go. I could force them to tell me what they knew about Killian, whether there was some weakness he had that I could use to stop him. Then I would end them once and for all, so they could never hurt me or Carmella again.

  I turned my back on the note, on the kitchen, on the house we had made a home, and went out the door.

  Killian was no longer on the ground where I had left him moments ago. He was nowhere in sight. I threw my bag in the backseat of my car and got into the driver’s seat. As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw Trixie’s house a few doors down. My lips pursed into a pout. She was my first and best friend, and I might never see her again. She was definitely better off not getting mixed up in my world. She deserved to live as normal a life as possible.

  I looked away from her house and looked ahead, driving forward onto the dark, empty road of our quiet little neighborhood.

  The world around me was sleeping. Everything looked so peaceful as I drove away from Seattle. But I could still feel something lurking in the shadows, watching me. It urged me to drive faster, as if I could flee from it. But no matter how much distance I put between me and the city I would now always see as home, that prickle on the back of my neck would not fade. It was like the demon I was running away from was riding my shoulders, ready to pounce at a moment of weakness.

  I drove for a couple of hours, my exhaustion from several nights of broken sleep catching up with me. I would need to stop soon. I had intended to drive all night. Vegas was seventeen hours away by car, and I didn’t want to lengthen this trip with an unnecessary motel stay. But my eyelids were getting heavy, falling closed despite my attempts to keep them up. If I kept going like this, I would pass out behind the wheel, and that would be disastr
ous.

  Unfortunately, by the looks of my current surroundings, there wasn’t a motel anywhere in site. I was speeding down a highway that cut through a very dense dark forest. I had no idea how far away the next town was.

  I glanced down at the passenger seat for my phone. It was sitting there, lazily reflecting the lights from my dash stereo. I looked back up at the road ahead. There wasn’t a single car sharing the highway with me in either direction. I figured it was safe enough to use my phone’s navigation.

  I reached my hand across the shifter and grabbed my phone. With eyes bouncing between the road and my phone, I turned on the screen and tapped on the microphone icon next to my search bar.

  “Find the nearest motel,” I dictated to the search engine.

  After a few seconds, the phone pinged with my search results. I glanced down at the map that popped up. The next motel was about forty-five minutes away, in some little town called Pine Grove. That didn’t seem horrible. I could slap myself awake for the next sixty miles until I got there.

  I closed my phone and set it back on the passenger seat, then put my attention back to the road in front of me.

  To my horror, I was speeding right toward a shadowy black figure that was just standing in the middle of the road, facing me.

  I slammed on the breaks, knowing there was no way I was going to miss this person. I truly was doomed to be a murderer.

  But when my car reached the figure, there was no impact, no body smacking into my windshield and flying into the road. The figure simply disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  If the circumstances were different, I would have thought that sleep deprivation was making me hallucinate. I knew better. I knew that I didn’t imagine someone in the road. Killian had found me. There really was no escaping him.

  I didn’t have time to ruminate on the matter, for the next thing I knew, some force slammed down on the hood of my car, denting in the metal and flipping the vehicle—with me inside it—into the air.

  Everything that followed proceeded in slow motion. For a very long moment, I was flying, weightless, watching the world outside my window turn upside-down. My phone was floating in the air beside my head, like I was an astronaut in a rocket wandering through space. The moment was surreal, almost dream-like—