Page 25

Other than the fact that he was a literal ghost eradicator, spirits were also wary of this particular house because of the protection talisman hanging above the front door. There was no way a spirit could break into his house from any direction as long as that iron-clad barrier remained.

Was he just being paranoid?

“Hey, you okay?” Aaron helped him straighten up from the wall. “How are you feeling?”

Evan scratched his hair. “Confused.”

Leading him into the living room, Aaron placed a small carry bag on the coffee table. “I guess that’s because you’ve been asleep for two days.”

“Two days?” That explained the aching muscles. His body took longer to recuperate this time. Evan’s brows dipped as Aaron took out a container from the carry bag. “I can’t remember what happened…”

“At Greene Mansion?” They sat on the carpet around the coffee table as Aaron asked, “You don’t remember?”

“Greene Mans—”

As if struck by lightning, Evan’s vision went white. Memories flashed into his head with a brutal force. Too fast. Too strong.

He dropped his head into his hands, dizzy and utterly horrified.

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

The array room, the golden mirror, Bruce and his men…the red silhouette.

Scarlet eyes.

Something had escaped from that room that night. Something Evan himself had accidentally set free. The force of that sinister energy, its killing intent, those scattered bodies…

A weight dropped into his stomach.

What have I done?

“When you suddenly disappeared, I searched every corner of the mansion for you with the others,” Aaron said, a frown evident in his voice. “But after a while, they disappeared too. Took me forever just to look through the ground floor, and by the time I made it upstairs…the fire had already spread.”

Evan blinked up. “Fire?”

“Yep,” Aaron served a bowl of chicken soup and placed it in front of Evan. “You were lying out cold near the hallway when I found you. By the time I carried you out and got my phone to work so I could call for help, the fire had spread across most of the mansion. And the rest, by the time help arrived.”

“Fuck…” Evan slapped a hand against his forehead.

Aaron sighed, crossing his arms over the coffee table with a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, the whole place burnt down to a crisp.”

Evan briefly wondered about the reactions of the Greene couple upon witnessing the charred remains of their ancestral home.

It had to bethatthing’s doing, using the chaos of the fire as an escape. Perhaps it was tied down to the mansion and not just the mirror, and once the mansion caught on fire, it was set free.

“Wait,” Evan jerked upright. “What about the payment?”

“Well, I wasn’t quite sure what the hell had happened. Still, I confirmed that the accident had happened during the exorcism. But there was property damage, so…the pay was cut.”

“How much?”

Aaron’s lips thinned. “Half of it.”

Great.

Evan slammed a fist down on the coffee table with a curse. At the end of the day, all that left eye-twitching hadn’t been a false premonition. Hehadended up losing money after all.

But cutting the payment inhalf? Damned Greene assholes. Evan knew it sounded too good when they promised such a huge sum. The mansion was beyond repair anyway, but they still used the fire as an excuse to take away half of his payment. The payment for which he had risked his life.