Page 107 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

And then he disappeared.

“I don’t want to take it off.” Aurelia stomps up the steps, pouting. Kassidy has abandoned her position as feather collector in favor of pulling out fistfuls of grass.

“You can’t eat dessert with it on,” Amelia wagers. At the mention of dessert, Aurelia’s eyes light up. The costume is in her mother’s hands before I can blink.

“Dessert time!” Aurelia announces, running inside. Krystal scoops Kassidy up, holding her extra tight before pressing a kiss to her cheek and handing her to Amelia.

“Are you coming in?” Amelia asks us.

“In a few. Start without us, babe,” Krystal tells her.

Amelia smiles softly before closing the door. Krystal drops onto the step beside me.

“You don’t have to drink that.” She nods at the mug in my hands. “I know you hate tea.”

I laugh. Or, try to. It hasn’t come easy the past few days. It’s like the mechanical box inside my chest that produces the sound is broken. “Thanks. Not just for the leaf water, but for letting me stay with you and join for Thanksgiving. It’s been a really lovely day.”

Krystal nudges my shoulder. “Of course. You can stay as long as you like. You don’t need to rush to find a new apartment.”

I’ve visited my apartment once to get more clothes, contacts, and my spare pair of glasses. Even with Beliar gone now, going back makes me sweat. The leasing company couldn’t so much as give me a window screen after weeks of asking, but since I was nearly presumed dead, they’re letting me out of my lease a few months early. Saints, they are.

“If you don’t feel up to coming back to work on Monday with me, that’s okay, too. I’m sure things will be a wreck for the foreseeable future as Ted takes Luke’s position.”

“That should be interesting,” I say, but the mention of Luke unmoors me. Since waking up in the hospital, I’ve tried to do anything, everything, but think of him. Once my stitches heal and bruises fade, I’ll have no indication that the events of the past two weeks were real.

Sleep has helped, though I always wake in a cold sweat, the last dregs of a nightmare finishing its course. I’ve also regained my appetite. Between my ravenous hunger and slow-as-molasses healing, I’ve never been more assured that I didn’t permanently pick up some demon traits.

“How’d it go?” Krystal asks, nodding to my phone. “Did he answer?”

“First ring.” I swallow down the lump that rose in my throat thirty minutes ago when I stepped outside to finally call my ex. When Krystal returned my phone, I had a dozen missed texts and voicemails from him since our disappearance and reappearance made national news. “It went fine. I apologized for…leaving like I did. He wanted closure and to make sure I was okay. He’s with someone new, so, that’s great for him.”

I can’t entirely keep the bitterness out of my tone, though it’s undeserved. As far as exes go, mine could be much worse.

“I’m proud of you,” Krystal says. “Except you lied.”

“About?”

“You’re not okay.” Krystal gives me a small, sad smile. “You have a tell, you know.”

“A tell?”

“When you’re lying. You twist the ring on your finger.”

I look down at the ring my parents got me. Its purple amethyst gem shimmers in the dwindling sunlight. “I…didn’t realize I had a tell.”

I wonder if she can see what else I’m keeping from her. In the hospital, she asked if I remembered anything.

Everything, I wanted to say as it all came flooding back. “Do you remember anything?”

Krystal frowned, a faraway look in her eyes. “Not really. I remember pulling over on the side of the road to ask if a man lying in the grass was alright. And then nothing but glimpses. Or more like…feelings. Fear and hopelessness, most of all. They think we were kidnapped.”

“Who are we?”

“You and me, Poppi, and a woman named Yasmine. Madeline also disappeared around the same time as us. We didn’t think either of you would show up, but you did, so maybe she will, too.”

My heart panged at the memory of Madeline getting skewered through the chest. I wanted to tell the truth so her family could get closure, but I didn’t know how. “You’re okay?”

“Sure thing, babe.” Krystal smiled. Then, as if taking a real second to think about it, she sighed. “No. I feel so fucked up. We were targeted, Brie. This is the shit Netflix makes documentaries about. It’s fucking terrifying. But we’re alive. Two badass bitches, we are.”