Page 94 of Play Nice

“Cici, unlock this door right now!”

She started her giggling again.

“This isn’t funny! This isn’t a joke. This is serious,” I said, pounding on the door. “Please, Cici. Open up.”

Her giggles got louder and louder, and I recognized something inside them or maybe hiding underneath—a distinction I couldn’t make—that terrified me.

The demon was laughing with her. Harmonizing with her.

It set something off inside me. Fury. I’d been on edge all morning, with the coming exorcism, with my ex-husband’s cruelty. Roy’s words echoed in my head: The demon living in the house has attached itself to Cici.

I lost it.

I beat against the door.

“No! You will not take my daughter!” I screamed. “You will not take her! You will leave this house! This is my house! My house! It’s mine! Cici is mine! You will not take her!”

The knife in my hand found its way into the door. I lifted it high and I stabbed into the wood. Over and over.

“I will bleed you out!” I heard myself say. “I will bleed you out!”

I wasn’t sure when Cici stopped her giggling. When it went quiet in the house, save for my screaming.

Elle and Dee stood in the hall, wide-eyed. Trembling. Aghast.

When I turned to them, they screamed and ran upstairs.

I called after them, but that only made them scream louder, run faster. They were afraid of me. I took a step back, looked at the knife stuck in the door, and was afraid of myself. For myself. For all of us.

I pulled the knife from the door, fell to my knees, and prayed.

The door opened, and Cici stepped out. She was pale, her hair standing on end. She looked at me, reached out and touched my face. Her hands were cold.

“I would never hurt you,” I said softly, setting the knife down on the carpet. She looked from it to me, back to it. “Never, ever, ever. You know that. Don’t you?”

“I know,” she said sweetly. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” I asked. I wanted to hug her, hold her tightly, but I couldn’t move. She must have known, because at that moment she wrapped her arms around me. She leaned in close, petting my hair.

Then she whispered in my ear. “You’re going to die here.”

—

The book smacks against the wall. The sound surprises me, even though I’m the one who threw it.

I sit and stare for a minute.

“Yeah. No.”

My legs are restless, and I’m chewing on my nails because why not? My manicure is already ruined. I call Aunt Helen again, but this time she doesn’t pick up. I’m upset. I’m upset and I have no one to talk about it with, which only makes me more upset.

I will bleed you out. I will bleed you out. I know it happened because I remember it happening, but the specifics of Mom’s version reframe my recollection, leave this sticky residue of doubt.

You’re going to die here. Absolutely not. I did not, would not ever say that. She’s making it seem like I was possessed or like the demon was over my shoulder, constantly whispering in my ear. But I would remember that, wouldn’t I?

I can’t deny that there’s something in this house. And she did die here.

Was she proving a point? Was it vindication? Was it her obsession? Was it inevitable?