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“One, it’s dark; two, he barreled at me; and three, he has a few pounds on me. Not to mention that I am over one hundred years old,” I explain.
“What? You don’t look a day over eighty,” the sheriff jokes. It falls flat, no one laughing, not even him.
Jayce
Having another emotion drift into your mind is a sensation I know I’ll never get used to. This time, I latch onto it, hold it close, and use it as a guide, tuning everyone else out.
The strange desire to inflict pain is mixed with pure adrenaline-fueled excitement. Whatever he is doing to Raven, he likes it. I hold onto the hope that it’s just her fear that makes him this happy.
Sick fuck.
We wind our way through the dirt-clad tunnels, searching for our girl. Down here, the only sounds that come through are the footsteps of our group and our rapidly pounding hearts.
“If you guys stay, you should fill these in,” Leo says. The man we didn’t trust at first is now the voice of reason, and likely, the only reason Lucien is alive.
“I wish we could just find them already,” Lucien curses. We’re all stunned into silence as a cascade of dirt stops our movements, dust and roots filling the air so we have to step back, coughing against the cloud of dirt surrounding us now.
“Jesus, is this thing collapsing?” Eli asks in a panic. The air has cleared before me enough to see movement in the cavern beyond, the one it opened up.
“No, I think Lucien just proved his powers useful,” I hiss at them, all of them catching onto my silent plea for them to be quiet.
“This place is collapsing!” Raven growls. “Just fucking let me go before both of us die. Fuck Daniel and his twisted mind!”
“He doesn’t like that,” a voice taunts back. It’s younger than Earl but holds a similar gruffness to it.
“That’s his son, Reese,” Leo whispers to us. “Let me go in first.”
We shift enough that he steps inside, gun drawn.
“Now, Reese, this isn’t worth dying over,” Leo calls out. The man was so intent on stalking Raven around the room, he didn’t even notice our group walking in. Now that he sees us, his eyes narrow.
“He’s possessed,” I point out. His eyes are glowing with an otherworldly light as if he were a human Jack-o-lantern. The smile that curls his lips is something of nightmares, spreading his mouth wider than natural, sending a shiver of fear down my spine.
Raven gasps and runs at us, hopping over a table in a move fueled by pure survival, until Lucien catches her in his arms.
“He’s possessed by someone named Daniel. Earl is around here somewhere,” Raven says in a sob.
“Earl’s dead,” I whisper back, not bothering to sugarcoat it. Her sigh of relief tells me it was the right choice.
“What the fuck do we do now?” she asks as the sheriff continues to slowly approach Reese.
“You can’t have her or any of them!” Reese shouts loud enough it echoes sharply in the room. That has us all moving behind the sheriff, refusing to let him face this alone. Not to mention he has no way to know what the ghost is feeling inside of this man.
A cold wave of excitement hits me.
“He’s about to do something, be careful,” I say out loud. That has the possessed man freezing, cocking his head to the side as he studies me. I don’t even bother to hide the smirk that moves across my lips.
“That’s right!” Raven yells back. “We know what you’re feeling, thinking, and even saying when you’re just in ghost form. There’s no winning here. Not with us.”
“Okay, Scooby gang, let’s not piss off the really angry ghost, right?” Leo groans in frustration. “Keeping you alive is quickly turning into a challenge.”
“Duck!” Raven shouts, all of us listening as Reese launches something over our heads, metal hitting the hard wall behind us.
“Reese, I will shoot you!” Leo yells out in warning. Raven’s gasp of horror sounds off right as Reese’s eyes lose their glow and he collapses to the ground. She rips off her protective necklace and wraps it around the sheriff’s head. She still has other protection but I move closer, placing a hand on her arm as if my own protective charms could extend to her.
A furious roar echoes loud in the room, the temperature falling to icy levels before it goes deathly silent.
“He’s gone for now,” Raven breathes out. “Get him out of here.”
