AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Katherine sighed. “Fine. I can show you a place she might be using. But it’s not going to do you any good. There’s no way to break her spell, and she’ll just turn them against you.”
“You don’t know that,” Cody said. “Demmy fought an alpha werewolf and won, so I’m pretty confident we can handle a jealous ghost.”
“Werewolf?” Katherine looked between them. “You’re kidding, right?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Oliver said before Cody could reply, and he got up from the chair and started working on the knot in one of the socks binding her wrist. “Just show us where the ghost has taken them, and we’ll handle the rest.”
CHAPTER NINE
Once she’d been untied, Katherine pulled off the dark and nasty wig, shaking out shoulder-length and wavy blond hair. Then she took some time to peel the latex away from her face. She looked great underneath all of it, and she held the largest piece of mask out to Cody with a sarcastic smile.
“Want to save it and play Scooby Doo later with your husband?”
Cody shook his head and picked up a flashlight. “Nope. I want you to lead us to him, right now. No more fucking around.”
“You take all the fun out of haunting a motel.” Katherine pouted before tossing the latex on the floor and looking at Oliver. “If you and your… What is he? Boyfriend?”
“His name is Dave,” Oliver said, “and, yes, he’s my boyfriend. Well, he’s more than that, I guess, since we’ve been living together a while now. Lover? Partner? Ugh, that always sounds like we’re in business together or something.”
“Oh my God.” Katherine looked at Cody. “He’s a real rambler, isn’t he?”
“Pretty much. Can we go now?”
Before Oliver could protest, Katherine stepped in close to him. He blinked in surprise, but was oddly comforted to see in his peripheral vision that Cody had also moved closer in a protective manner.
“If you and your boyfriend would have paid attention to my warnings and left this place, none of you would be in this predicament.”
“Warnings? What warnings?” Oliver threw his hands in the air as his temper shot into the red. He was exhausted, stressed, scared, worried about Dave and Demetrius, terrified he didn’t love Dave as much as Dave loved him, and now this crazy lady who spent her free time dressing up like some crazy old woman who lived in the woods was trying to make him feel bad? Oh, fuck no.
“You didn’t give us any warnings! You hid out in the woods and screamed to get us out of the room, then came in here and threw our things around. And then you stuck your face in the window and scared ten years off my life. Those weren’t warnings, they were scares. A warning is when you approach someone in a calm manner and say, ‘Oh, I see you’re here for the ghost. She is real, you know, though not the woman you’re expecting, and she’s really quite dangerous. She will pursue one of you and lead that person off to his doom. You really should return home and forget about this place.’ That’s a true warning, not the bullshit you pulled on us.”
Oliver ran out of breath and glared at Katherine as he panted, sweat running down his sides and back. He clenched and opened his fists as he fought to get his breathing under control. It felt like his heart was trying to kick its way out from behind his breastbone.
Cody put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “All good, Ollie?” he asked in a calm and quiet voice.
Oliver didn’t take his eyes off Katherine, and he was satisfied to see she might have looked a little bit remorseful. Or perhaps she was merely lamenting the loss of her favorite latex mask. With her level of crazy, who really knew?
“I’m fine. Let’s go.”
They gave Katherine the lantern, and they each took one of the bigger flashlights and a poker. Katherine left the room and turned right. Cody followed, keeping the beam of his flashlight centered on her back, and Oliver brought up the rear. She led them across the gravel lot into the woods at an angle they’d yet to search in. There was no trail here, so they simply forged a path. The rain had let up to a misting drizzle, which immediately messed up the lenses of Oliver’s glasses.
The good thing about following Cody through the woods was the fact that he acted like a human bulldozer, trampling down everything and clearing a path with his big boots and broad body. Katherine kept their pace fast, Cody barely managing to keep the flashlight on her. As Oliver walked, his mind worked over the details of their situation, and he wondered what they might discover when they reached the place where Katherine was leading them. Would it be some rundown old cabin where Dave and Demetrius were trapped? Or maybe it would be an old forgotten cemetery with broken and crooked headstones, where the Vixen was forcing them to dig their own graves by hand.
Worry and fear boiled within Oliver, and he tried to calm himself by thinking more positively. This would all turn out fine because it had to. They would find Dave and Demetrius and bring them back and all of them would talk about the events. Then he and Dave would return to their apartment in Parson’s Hollow and life would go on as normal.
But Katherine’s cutting words still echoed in the back of Oliver’s mind.
Here the two of you are, pacing around the ruins of this motel like rats in a maze and trying to find the men you came with. The men she took from you because they are more in love with you than you are with them.
That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Oliver loved Dave. Hell, he was in love with Dave, he knew that much. But then he wondered how he knew that he was in love? He’d never been in love before, not that he knew anyway. What was the difference between Dave and any other man he’d dated? Could it be true? Could Dave really have deeper feelings about him than Oliver had for him?
What the fuck? What kind of horrible, awful person was Oliver if he couldn’t love someone as kind and caring and supportive as Dave? He blinked away tears and cleared his throat.
“Cody,” he said in a loud whisper.
“What?” Cody said over his shoulder, his deep voice sounding like it came through a bullhorn.
“Keep it down,” Oliver said.
