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I’d learned long ago not to fear the dead. It was the living that you had to be afraid of. They were the ones that could truly haunt you.
I imagined there were going to be some sacrifices involved if they were holding it at that cemetery. I just hoped they weren’t the human type of sacrifices.
Or did I?
An image of my knife slicing into skin seeped into my mind, and I shivered just thinking about it.
I tried to ignore that the shiver was the good kind.
After we’d planned into the early morning hours, the three of us tried to get some sleep. Or at least I tried; Cain and Stellan slept perfectly, nestled against me like our world wasn’t falling apart.
I envied them.
I also missed Paxton and Remington fiercely. My mind kept conjuring up all the different ways that the Demon was torturing them, and it was driving me crazy.
Would they even be recognizable when we found them?
I didn’t let myself think about the possibility of not finding them.
But I couldn’t stop wondering what would be left of them when we did.
I’d seen the Demon torture people in a thousand different ways, and none of them were pleasant. He’d once kept someone chained to a gurney, and cut off little parts of them over a month, somehow keeping them alive. By the time they’d actually succumbed to death, they had no arms and legs. No genitalia. They were basically just a chest and a head.
I’d had nightmares for months after that one. And now I was trying to stop myself from imagining Remington’s leg showing up at the front door. Or one of Paxton’s hands.
I sat up in bed, a cold sweat dripping down my spine as I stared towards the window where sunlight was already beginning to bloom thanks to the ungodly late hour we’d stayed up until.
Sunrise felt like a lie. You always heard it represented a new day, a way to start over and shed the day before. But every day felt similar nowadays. A nightmare on loop with no end in sight.
Stop thinking like that,I chastised myself, trying to push those thoughts away.
I ran my hands over my face. This was what the Demon wanted. He wanted me to lose my cool, to stop thinking clearly. He wanted me to fall into his trap, so he could teach me a lesson and force me under his thumb.
I didn’t have to fall into his hands.
Out of the darkness and into the light, to all that is good, and all that is bright…
I repeated the mantra over and over again, but unlike usual…
It didn’t have its desired effect.
“Why are you up?” Stellan’s sleep filled voice asked. I turned my head and stared down at his tousled haired beauty. Things weren’t all bad, obviously. Not when I had that view.
“Come here,” he murmured, glancing over at Cain who was still fast asleep…or pretending to be asleep; you never could tell with him. I allowed him to bring me into his arms, and I cuddled into his warm chest, soaking his love in. The tension sitting on my shoulders shifted away slightly.
“I promise it’s going to be alright,” he whispered as he ran his fingers through my hair over and over again.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I answered sadly. His hand froze for a moment before he shook my words off and continued to stroke my hair.
Eventually, his steady caress had my eyes growing heavy, and I fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
* * *
The gathering was being heldat night, because you couldn’t be a spooky serial killer cult without a little nighttime ambiance. Nerves were churning in my stomach as Cain stopped the car on the side of the road about a half a mile away from the entrance to the cemetery. He pulled down into the ditch so the car wouldn’t be visible right away from the road, but still accessible enough that we could get it out if need be.
We stayed in the tree line as we walked towards the graveyard, hidden from the procession of cars that passed.
“What do you think these people do for their day jobs?” Stellan mused. “Or is that their job— worshipping a serial killer? It would definitely make for an interesting resume.”
