Page 33 of Chain Me

And, like any doting parents, mine had ensured that Georgie and I already had plots picked out beneath them. While we’d barely spent quality time together in life, we would spend the rest of our miserable eternity in close proximity.

How charming.

I trailed my fingers over my mother’s engraved name, and I swore I could hear her scolding from beyond the grave.MyGod, Eleanor, what have you done now? You were always such a dutiful child.

“Sorry,” I told her out loud, as contritely as one could while talking to herself.

Sinking into a crouch, I felt along the edge of the placeholder for my tomb. A sharp tug pried it loose enough to slip my hand into the space beyond. Tucked just within reach was a leather-bound book—and something else. I’d almost forgotten hiding it as well—a small plastic ring with a chipped blue bead in the center.

“Don’t tell me you’re too enthralled by nostalgia to remember why we’re here?” Dublin remarked behind me.

Clutching the book to my chest, I stood. “I’ve got it.” I turned and found him mere steps away. Extending the contract book with one hand, I quietly concealed the ring in my other. “My end of our bargain.”

His face unreadable, Dublin took the contract from me and tucked it into the breast pocket of his suit.

Even though he’d mentioned as much earlier, I still felt tempted to ask, “So what does this mean?”

“The book is merely a symbolic token,” he explained. “Your name is on it. Regardless, I find that it’s best to keep these things close.”

“Ah.” I nodded along as if I knew the first thing about soul collecting. “Well, now you have it.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched on for endless seconds. The longer we lingered, the colder the atmosphere felt. My teeth chattered as the monotonous scenery made me picture…well, decay.

“Yours?” Dublin nodded toward my earmarked tomb. “I suspect this isn’t a new purchase.”

“Oh, no.” I followed his gaze and brushed my thumb over the etched letters of my name. “It was a Christmas gift. My parents presented them to Georgie and me when I was eight.”

“A gift?”

“Of course.” I chafed at his tone. As if such a thing weren’t normal. “At least they had enough sense to realize that I didn’t need any space beneath mine. I should have it engraved now: Eleanor Gray, forever alone.”

Oh, the poetic justice of it all. One of the last Grays doomed to die a spinster.

“You believe that?” Dublin questioned in a tone that made me bite my lip. It was too stern. Too soft.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“You never envisioned yourself marrying someone? Anyone? You’ve never wanted children—”

“I’m tired.” Sighing, I turned to him, swiping my dust-covered fingers on my skirt. “Now that you have your precious…”

He was looking at me so strangely that I lost my train of thought. It was different from his usual scowl—eyes narrowed, mouth in a firm, odd line. Something flickered across his gaze, too elusive to name. Before I could, he marched toward the central chamber, beckoning with a wave of his hand. “Let’s go.”

Perhaps talk of tombs was too morbid, even for the undead? I tucked my ring into my purse and then followed him, uneasy. As he mounted the stairs, I couldn’t resist slipping my hand into the urn on my way past. Unsurprisingly, I found nothing but dust.

Georgie was probably galivanting on a beach somewhere with a new lover, her pathetic sister forgotten.

“I’d rather not spend the rest of the day among your deceased family members, if you don’t mind,” Dublin called from above.

When I finally rejoined him, he was waiting for me outside the building and I steeled myself for a plot-twist-style reveal.Ha!He had been lying all along. This was the part when he’d entrap my soul for eternity. I could only hope he didn’t drug me first before spiriting me away.

“Get in,” was all he said, wrenching the car door open for me.

Confined again, I had no escape from the thoughts that months alone had kept at bay. Things like memories of him I wished to smother. His touch. His taste.

The night he returned…

My lips burned and I brushed my fingers along them, tracing the remnants of him. Had that kiss been another twisted game?