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But it did, his ugly face turning sheet white.
Fuck, he must be on the hard stuff, too. I laughed.
He fretted in the room, begging and pleading with the invisible force—me—for mercy.
I’d give no mercy if he touched her.
Not tonight.
Not after loading my system with everything I could to suppress the desire to walk upstairs, toss her over my shoulder, and think fuck the world.
My knees wobbled, the shit in my system taking its toll on me. I steadied my feet on the ground, twisting my boots into the dirt.
The monster morphed back into the tiny man. The monotonous room swallowed him whole as the colors collapsed into a blur.
I collapsed, too, the hard ground capturing me.
I couldn’t do any more.
I couldn’t fucking stand. I could barely fucking see.
Too fucking out of it to lift my head. A worry sprung on me, digging in its claws, and I hissed, completely fucked out of my head but not enough to brush off the concern of who would feed my fucking cat tonight if I couldn’t get to my rental.
The humid night air kissed my cheeks, and the stars above told stories—lullabies that I felt caress me as they encouraged me to sleep.
A yellow glow came from above when another light appeared in his bedroom.
The little monster had retreated, because he was afraid of the ghost.
Chapter 52
Catharina
Cedric had been weird the last few days. Distant from me, and as stupid as it sounded, I felt unwelcome because of it as I sat in the living room on a wooden chair, trying to get Rhylie’s perfect hair right. There wasn’t much furniture in this room, and it was hard to sketch with nothing to lean on. An old-style TV sat in the corner, no couch pointing at it. A fireplace sat in the center of the room, filling one wall. And there was nothing else but this uncomfortable chair with no accompanying desk.
Remington Cole had a sellout show last night, and it was on every channel today.
I didn’t know how to feel about Remi, hating who he was and loving who I thought he’d be, in an unharmonious sequence. But I felt closer to Rhylie through him, so I left the TV on and used it as inspiration for my drawing.
For close to an hour, Cedric had been outside on the phone with someone he’d met on a dating app yesterday. He’d used someone else’s photo, and she had fallen head over heels for it. His phone had been glued to his hand since.
What would happen to me if he met someone?
Would he let me go? Or would he send me back?
The back door opened, and the spring air crept in.
Leaving my sketchpad behind, I stepped up to the window, pulled back the dirty voile, and cringed over the black mold at my fingers.
Then, I froze. Cedric was still out front, smiling, his knees bouncing as he sat on the porch steps.
I shifted to the kitchen with slow feet. The back door was closed, and not a thing moved. My blood turned to ice, and my pajamas did nothing to keep me warm.
Dust clung around my feet, even after wiping them on each leg of my pajamas. Footprints surrounded me as natural light entered through the dirty window, some mine, some from Cedric’s boots, some just like Cedric’s but much bigger.
The message on the wall stood out. I’d found Cedric down here a few mornings ago, peeling the paper from the walls with his dirty nails and kitchen knives in an attempt to hide a message that he claimed had been left by a ghost. That same message was etched right through to the plaster.
For three days, he’d wandered around the house burning sage, fumigating each room as he tried to get rid of the spirit.
