Page 148 of Cruel Pleasures

The unseen ghosts that follow me wherever I go.

A sigh leaves me as I stop in the kitchen and ignore the creeping feeling.

I had thought by searching for Lyra that I would find some form of closure. I would discover what happened to my best friend and possibly even be reunited if she was still alive. Instead, more questions materialized. Things happened that confused and disturbed me on a level I can’t possibly begin to put into words.

I’ve had to force moments like the Hostess’s murder out of my memory banks. I’ve had to forget what I saw looming over me as her body collapsed onto me and bled out. The times I spent with two men who were obsessed with me have met the same fate.

They’ve been pushed to the far recesses of my mind.

I can’t let myself think about them. The second I do is the second the weight becomes more unbearable than it already is.

I want to forget any of it happened. I’ll have to find a way to move on from all of it.

The fridge is pitifully barren considering six people live under this roof. Options include deli meat, a carton of eggs, lots of condiments like ranch and ketchup, and some slices of mango. I fish out the deli meat and slap together a dry sandwich on wheat bread I find in the pantry.

Returning to the staircase with my paper plate and bottled water, my mood sullen and movements sluggish, I pause on the bottom stair. The unsettled feeling has only intensified inside me as I throw one final glance around the first floor.

It’s true because I know it is. More than that, I can sense it in the air.

Those unseen ghosts that follow me wherever I go.

“You’re here,” I say into the poignant silence. “Aren’t you?”

In the second that passes, no one answers me. And then…

“We never left, minx.”

38. Archer

Fall in Love with You - Montell Fish

The plate Imani’s holding slides out of her hand and tumbles onto the floor. Her lips part from the level of surprise that hits her. She can do nothing else but stand and stare as we reveal ourselves. We step out from the dark corners where we’ve remained just out of sight.

It wasn’t as simple of an endeavor as we hoped—her stupid roommates took forever leaving for the evening. One of them, a tall woman with an emerald-green tint suffused throughout her dark hair, had hung back in hesitation. She almost changed her mind before the others dragged her off.

Imani looked serene in her sleep.

I stood over her bed reminiscing over the many times I’d done the same at Hurst Manor. Nights where I had snuck into her room and allowed my compulsive wants to take over entirely. She was none the wiser, so peacefully unconscious.

When she woke, she woke feeling no better than before she’d gone to sleep. The heaviness was apparent in how she moved and the mood she gave off.

We trailed after her, still out of sight. Still unheard and unknown.

…though, deep down in her being, Imani seemed to sense she wasn’t alone.

She believed it was the dark feelings plaguing her. Depression and grief she’s been wallowing in. But she was wrong, failing to realize the dark presence she felt wasn’t malicious or out to hurt her.

It was the presence of two men who have spent every second of the past few months obsessing over her.

Tonight is the night we finally reveal ourselves.

“What…” she stammers out, then takes a cautionary step back. Forgetting she’s on the bottom of the staircase, she almost trips over the next stair. “How are you… how did you…”

She can’t even complete a sentence and seems to decide she can’t stand anymore. She buckles, dropping down onto one of the stairs, her hand extended to hold onto the railing.

Ryu makes an attempt to go to her, then stops himself. During the past couple months we’ve been apart, he’s obsessed over her as much as I have, though in different ways. He’s combed through every detail of her life to ensure it’s running as it should.

When her boss was close to letting her go, he visited him after dark and roughed him up enough that the man pissed his pants and cowered, making promises he’ll never fire her. When Imani lost her wallet on the subway a few weeks ago, he made a point of tracking it down and mysteriously returning it to her home address. Something Imani had frowned at when the wallet turned up but had no way of knowing how it had.