“Our father hated you doing it.”
Stephanie’s lips arch into a full smile that reaches her pretty eyes. “That’s the thing. We don’t belong to him anymore. He literally has no control over us. We’re finally free. That was the whole reason Ami agreed to this at all, and I know for sure that you did as well. I won’t say bad things about him because I really don’t even know him, but he did have some old-fashioned thoughts and I’m glad I don’t have to hear about them anymore.”
“I’ll drink to that. And to sticking together. All of us. No matter what happens.” I raise my mug before I remember it’s empty. “Any chance I can get a refill?”
Steph grins. “Sure. Because that is definitely worth toasting.”
Chapter 15
Wraith
Ican’t sleep.
Again.
After Leena’s questions and the shit going down with Gage, I keep getting flashbacks from my past and no matter how I try, I can’t block them out. They’re waiting for me the second I close my eyes, since it’s safer to keep them open, I look at the ceiling until my eyes burn.
Beside me, Leena sleeps soundly. She has her back to me. Abby is tucked between us, snoring her little doggy snores. God, she snores a lot. I find it oddly comforting, but tonight not even that steady breathing can lull me into a sense of calm.
Finally, around four, I throw back the covers and creep out of the bedroom, leaving Abby and Leena undisturbed. I head to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee, not because I need it, but because I’ve pretty much given up on substances when I’m feeling like this. It doesn’t bring me any kind of peace anymore. It usually makes me feel worse, because it reminds me of all the years I spent poisoning myself trying to purge the past from my mind and soul.
I down the coffee so hot that it nearly scalds my throat, standing in the kitchen looking out the window at the small backyard. I have plans to landscape back there. It’s something else to do with my hands. Yet another outlet.
Afterwards, I creep silently to the living room. The house is a stupid construction, a one-and-a half-story, but the half story is more like an attic. There’s a trap door in the living room. I take the stick with the hook on the end out from behind the couch and unlatch the cord so that it’s hanging down. I give it a quick, hard tug, and open damn sesame, a set of little stairs magically appears from the ceiling.
Hardly practical.
Whoever built this house probably liked blow as much as I used to, because no sober person would ever design something like this.
Still. My fingers itch to paint and it’s nearly light enough that I won’t have to keep all my battery-operated camping lanterns running up there. I need to do something, anything, or I’ll be consumed by memories and all the demons that live in them.
I won’t let them claw their way inside of me any longer.
It’s either paint or lose my fucking mind.
The confined space with just the one tiny window, a space barely tall enough to stand up in, but spanning the length and width of the house, hardly has adequate venting for working with oils, but the smell stopped bothering me a hell of a long time ago.
I lose myself in the paints, the mixing of colors, the swirling and blending, the broad strokes on the blank canvas that I set up. I’m so lost that time and space cease to have any meaning and it’s just me, just me and my demons, battling it out like always.
I’m so deeply entrenched in my own world, that I fail to realize the sun is streaming through the window or feel the vibrations of the ladder shaking. Nothing breaks my concentration until the sharp inhale echoes behind me.
I whirl, my brush dripping paint, to face my intruder.
I take her in, looking like a wide eyed, startled angel. She looks like a ghost in her plain white nightgown, nearly rendered translucent, her long limbs and bold curves highlighted by the sun streaming through the small window. Her mahogany hair is tousled and trails loose around her shoulders, flowing like a dark, silken waterfall down her back. The sun illuminates the strands of gold in her hair and the flecks in her eyes. Her face is flushed with sleep, her lashes starred, her lips full and pouty.
“Wraith,” she breathes, as those maddeningly mysterious eyes sweep over the finished canvases propped and stacked in just about every space in the loft. “You- you’re an artist.” That word,artist, is said with such reverence it guts me.
I slowly set the brush down onto the board I use for mixing paint. “Only from necessity,” I nearly growl.
She stares at me, her eyes growing wider. I stare back, boldly, appraising her lush body below that fucking nightgown. It’s just a long t-shirt type thing really, modest, if she hadn’t been standing in front of the sunlight and it wasn’t white.
The air crackles, charged with static electricity and a desire so thick and potent that it’s tangible. I can taste the metallic bite of it.
Leena’s eyes widen and I watch a visible tremor race through her body. She lets out a shaky gasp and takes a step back as I take one forward.
“You look like you’ve seen the devil,” she breathes.
Her nostrils flare and I know it’s not just terror she’s feeling. She breathes in, scenting the air like an animal, scenting me.
