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“Low-key.” I swipe the excess tears off my cheeks. “I don’t want to make it a big thing. She wouldn’t have wanted that anyway.”
Cooper chuckles, wrapping his arm around the back of my head and gesturing me down to the stair beside Dion. “Miss P didn’t like half the people in this town. I can’t imagine her wanting anyone really anywhere near her.”
A sad smile touches my lips, and before I can swipe it away, the realization of everything hits me like a Mack truck. “I’m never going to see her again.”
Silence stretches between the three of us. It almost feels strange. Or maybe I expect it to feel strange, and the fact that it doesn’t is alarming to me.
“Well, Dion, good fucking job at making the police hang around,” Malyk says from behind us.
He rounds my side, slowly lowering himself on the other, and I watch as confusion washes over Cooper’s face. I already know the questions he wants to ask, but I also know my best friend, and as much as he’s a demander of secrets—especially if they’re mine—he won’t step on my toes to get to the answers.
I hope.
I slid my hand across the marble counter, tracing the cracks and lines. I knew what I was going to ask the second I stepped back in here. The week before was slow. I hadn’t heard anything from either of them which worked. It was the only way to do it.
A glass was placed on the counter. A tattoo-covered hand over the top. “You know what you’re doing?”
I found his eyes instantly, tilting my head to the side. “I don’t know. Should I know?”
He gave nothing away. I hated it about him. He was painfully aloof. He could be undressing you or planning your murder. You’d never know. “Then I guess we will figure it out.”
The music slipped to a slower tune as the chatter around us quietened. I could feel my skin tingle, the alcohol long since settling through my blood. The lights flicked on, pointing toward the stage. I turned, brushing my long hair over my shoulder. A girl hung by her ankles by rope, leading up to the ceiling. Completely nude, she raised her head up at us, the bloodred lipstick on her lips smudged in a wide smile. The black mascara that lined her eyes was smudged, and there was something about her that made me uneasy. It’s as the first time I had seen it. Usually, they danced. They had sex. They did other things as other people had sex with them.
This was different. I felt it.
I looked over her body, careful not to flinch. One movement and they’d know. They always knew, and I had to be careful.
So fucking careful.
Her skin was unblemished, her hair pin straight.
Maybe she was there as a prop. Acting.
The bidding started, and I hung back, clearing my throat. I didn’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
“What about now, hmmm?” His voice came to the back of my neck. “You want this one?”
I shook my head. “No. Not this one.”
Shiloh
The room feels the same. There is the corner of the bed, the nightstands, and the tall dresser that sits opposite. Everything is familiar. I’m asleep, right? Or am I awake? I try to turn my body, but it won’t move. Stuck in a paralysis of confusion, I panic.Oh God. Why can’t I move? Why does everything look real, but it isn’t? Am I dreaming?
No. I’m not. This is real.
I try again, attempting to roll over onto my back, but nothing happens.
A dark shadow passes me, and my insides twist with fear. I need to run. Sweat spills down the side of my face. I begin counting down from ten.Why? Why can’t I close my eyes? Shut myself off from what I don’t want to see. I try to close them again, but a pale face zips right to mine, and I scream—launching off the bed in a pool of sweat, swiping my face with my hand. The silk sheets beneath me stick to my body, but my heart is still pitter-pattering in my chest. What the fuck was that? I’ve heard of sleep paralysis before—is that what just happened?
My phone lights up on the nightstand, the same one I just saw moments ago, only it seems different. I swipe it and open the new text from Cooper.
I love you, but I’m not coming in there if you’re seeing ghosts. You know I don’t do haunted shit.
Rolling my eyes, I shove the sheets off my body when I read the time. Four a.m. The perfect time to be out on the water.You do know this house is in the top three of the most haunted houses in the United States, right?Maybe this is a bad time to remind my best friend that this house shouldn’t still be standing. Maybe that’s what that was. One of the ghosts that walks these halls paying me a visit.
Weird.
Would really appreciate it if they didn’t do it again.
