Page 81 of The Devil and His Ghost

Her voice was so serious that it drew my eyes to her. The joking air left my own as I answered, “Of course, Ghost.”

“The director.” She stared at the top of the desk, and her hand curled into a fist on top of it. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Will you go through his office?”

Violence surged with furious heat inside of me. I stomped it down to answer her as calmly as I could. “Yeah. Absolutely. If anything happens, I’m right next door. I’ll leave the door open, so you leave yours open, too. Okay?”

She nodded.

I left the room only to face the closed door adjacent to it. The name plate made my vision go red. Unable to keep my demonic form at bay, my ribbed horns, black claws, fangs, and golden eyes appeared while a low growl rumbled in my chest. My lip curled with contempt as I snapped my fingers and watched the plate and the name on it go up in flames from Hell. When they cleared with a wave of my hand, only a scorched patch of door remained.

Good. I planned on ridding the world of any trace of Edwin Cartwright.

His office was the most spacious of all the doctor’s, and being at the end of the building, it was the only one with a window behind the large mahogany desk. Built-in shelves lined each wall, and two couches faced each other with a table between them. It looked expensive, professional, and nothing like the space occupied by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“But that’s who you were, huh?” I mumbled to the empty room. “That’s the man you were before I took your fucking life.”

I’d never forget the high that followed the sound of his internal screams or the sweetness of his terror. The second the life left him had been exhilarating. I was nearly able to rejoice in the fact that Mr. Monster had finally gotten rid of the real monster. But there was no joy that day. There was no celebration at the wedding, because I’d ruined it. I’d failed her. I’d broken my promise. Killing him hadn’t changed anything, which was why I hadn’t revealed the truth of his death to Kendyll.

I searched his office, but there wasn’t much that interested me or our investigation. The man hadn’t really left much in here before he vacated the facility due to its closing. I flopped down into the seat the beast had occupied and threw my feet up on his desk. With a lifeless whistle, I grabbed a pair of scissors left behind and bitterly dug them into the desk, carving up its surface with the man’s sins.

“May your soul be in as much endless torture as Hell is able to give,” I murmured, throwing the scissors once I was done.

The metal blades sank into a thick book on the shelf, but the momentum toppled it over with a heavy thud. I stared blankly at that tome with its bent pages. With a heavy sigh, I pushed out of the chair to leave when I stopped in my tracks. I narrowed my eyes on the old wooden shelf where the book had been. Behind where the tome previously sat was a square that looked out of place within the wood.

I drifted closer. The etching of the box was so faint, it nearly blended in with the discoloration of the old wood, but my demonic eyesight was able to make out the shape. In front of the shelf, I realized the square was a door to a hidden compartment built into the back of the bookshelf. A pinprick hole indicated it required a key to open, but I didn’t want to bother trying to find the damn thing. I smashed my fist into the panel, busting the door through.

“That’s it?” I grumbled when I spotted the contents inside the secretive hole.

All that was inside the shoebox sized compartment was a single old sheet of thick paper with a series of numbers on it.

331524

I quirked a brow. “What the fuck does that mean?”

It could’ve been a code to a safe belonging to a former doctor or some other area. Maybe a code to get into a ward? But why the fuck was this the only thing in here, and why hide it? I wasn’t sure if the numbers held significance, but just in case, I wanted to run them by Kendyll to see if they meant anything to her.

I started toward Dr. Roberts’ office where Kendyll still was. “Kendyll, do these numbers mean—”

I froze. She was on her knees on the floor by a bookshelf. A folder with numerous papers rested in her lap, and she read the pieces of paper with hand scribbled notes and typed up reports. Her expression was eerily blank, like she’d gone numb and empty.

“Kendyll?” I called gently as I moved to kneel beside her. Now that I was closer, I had a better view of what had rendered her so despondent. My heart lurched.

“It’s mine,” she stated insipidly as though reading my thoughts. “My chart. I found it shoved behind a lot of books, like he’d hidden it in a rush and forgot it was there. They liked doing that. Shoving down and hiding what happened to me. Pretending I was a fucking lunatic and liar.”

Her words were far too calm given the language and the meaning behind them. That only made the hole in my chest open wider.

“Kendyll—”

She gritted her teeth, and her hands shook as she gripped the pages to read off with a rueful laugh, “‘Severe psychosis.’ ‘Factitious disorder.’ ‘Consistently fabricates childhood trauma.’”

With an angry roar that had been held back for too long, she threw the folder and its numerous papers across the room until the old sheets fluttered around us in a slow downpour of lies passed off as truth. Her body trembled with her visible rage, and a familiar helplessness overtook me. I reached out to pull her against me and let her fume and scream within the safety of my arms.

There was nothing I could say that would ever ease her fury, hurt, or mistrust of those who should’ve been looking out for her. Everyone in Kendyll’s life had failed her. They’d failed to protect her, believe her, or support her. Nothing would change that, nor would offering cheap ass words change those vile words she’d just read.

So instead, I held her, rubbing my palm along her back and kneading the base of her head. I offered her what she should’ve been offered back then. Security. Belief. Care.

Eventually, her heavy breathing and shaking calmed. Her hands somehow ended up curled around the fabric of my shirt, and she’d landed in my lap. Her cheek rested on my shoulder, so I felt each breath like the ghost of her kiss on my neck. The feeling made me shiver slightly, and that yearning tried to manifest physically where she sat.

“I can feel your dick,” Kendyll stated as though making an observation about the weather.