Page 98 of Deadly Blooms (Psychic Unraveled #1)

He grabbed my arms and pulled me in—tight. Our bare, soaked bodies collided, heaving against each other like we were about to rage fuck.

“You’re not letting me go?” I growled, twisting to break free.

“Not until you stop trying to kill me.” His voice was low, breathless.

“Technically,” he grunted, wrestling to hold me still, “I’m not married.”

“Let. Me. Go.” I writhed, but it only made his grip tighten.

“Say you won’t hit me again.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Say it.”

I ground my jaw, vibrating with rage. “Fine. I won’t.”

“Won’t what?”

“I won’t hit you.” I seethed, venom in every syllable.

“This is un-fucking-believable.” My voice trembled with rage, fear of abandonment and desperation, but I kept it even.

Barely. “You built me up—just to rip my heart out. Why would you even tell me you loved me? Why did you kiss me after all this time? Did you want to play a game, see how far you could take it before I finally fell head-over-heels for you?”

He finally let me go, and I took two tumbling steps back, clutching the towel tight around me like it could hold in what was already unraveling.

“Let me explain.” he said, his head hanging low.

“What’s to explain?” I asked, quieter now, trying to stay upright as I limped in a slow circle. “You obviously still love her.”

I gestured toward the fogged mirror like it could somehow reflect the wreckage between us.

“You’ll fuck me…” my voice cracked, “…but you won’t be with me. Sounds pretty simple to me.”

The words hit deep and hard—but not to him.

To me.

That line, that bitter line… I’d heard it before.

Too many times.

It was like a script—the one served to me when they got too close, too tangled in me. Too obsessed. When they said they loved me and I knew it was only the spell.

Oh, Karma…

You sneaky, sneaky bitch .

It finally started to make sense.

Graham was my punishment.

Not some cosmic meet-cute. Not fate. Just karma—wearing a badge, a scowl, and dick that was made for me.

I never meant to break the hearts of the men I enchanted. I never wanted to ruin them. But once the spell’s side-effects kicked in, it was always the same—fuck buddies turned hollowed-out husks, obsessed and spiraling.

And now it was my turn.

Graham’s arms dropped, his whole body vibrating with rage and grief.

“I couldn’t save them!” He sobbed, voice cracking, as the tears finally spilled. He turned away, jaw tight enough to shatter.

“W-what are you… talking about?”

He let out a sharp exhale. Like just saying it would rip him apart.

“I got my wife and three-year-old daughter kidnapped. And then—slaughtered.”

The air was gone. Just gone.

“Oh, my god. Graham?—”

I reached for him, purely instinct—somewhere between apology and desperation.

But he jerked away like I’d burned him.

“No. You wanted to talk—” His eyes snapped to mine. They weren’t angry or even cold—they were dead. “So let’s talk.”

I swallowed hard and grabbed my robe from the hook, wrapping it around myself like armor.

His voice dropped low. Still distant, but the anger thrummed beneath the surface, coiling and ready to strike.

“I’d just finished a double shift. Been working all week—fucking exhausted. Rebecca, Wrenley, and I were supposed to go to the park before Wren’s nap. Kind of wear her down, ya know, so she’d actually sleep.”

He paused, a muscle in his jaw twitched.

“I was dead on my feet. Bec told me to sleep. Said she’d take Wren alone.” He laughed, but it came out sharp and bitter. There was no humor in it.

“Next thing I know, Shell’s pounding on my door. She’s pacing. Her hands are shaking. She’s sweaty. Looks like she’s seen a ghost.” His brow furrowed, lost in it now, back there, in that moment.

“Shell doesn’t scare. She’s harder than steel. But that day? She couldn’t even speak.” He exhaled through his nose, then finished, “and when she finally broke… I knew.”

His voice shredded at the edges.

“The look on her face told me my worst fear had happened before she ever said the words.”

I couldn’t help but stare. I just sat quietly, watching him. He was so broken down. The weight of all he’d been carrying for a decade was visible now.

His jaw flexed, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “Some asshole in a blue station wagon. Parker Donovan. Witnesses said Bec fought the whole way to the car.”

I forced out a whisper.

“No one helped?”

His smile was ice cold.

“Nope. He had a gun, and people are pussies if it’s not their own. They’d rather tell an innocent child to ‘get fucked.’”

Bile clawed its way up my throat.

“Graham, I?—”

But he didn’t stop. His voice turned flat, mechanical.

“We searched everywhere. Dug into his address, work, known associates… the guy vanished. Two fucking weeks. And all I could think was how scared they must’ve been. What he was doing to them. What they were going through.”

He choked on a breath—just once—but he kept going.

“No one had a clue. Not his family. Not his friends. Not even coworkers. Then he slipped up. Ran his card in Douglas, Wyoming. One dumb transaction.”

He leaned against the sink, crossing his arms and staring at the tile in front of him.

“I got there ahead of the team. Started flashing their pictures around town. Finally, an old man told me he’d seen them—at the low-cost motel just outside of town.” A shudder worked its way through him. “I was fifteen minutes late. Only fifteen fucking minutes.”

I shifted. The weight of his words smothered me, heavy and merciless. The space between us thickened, charged with his nightmare.

“My sweet little girl, Wren… she was lying on the bed, holding her pink teddy bear.” He swallowed.

“She looked so peaceful. Like she was just napping. It was always a fight to get her to sleep. But once she was out…” his voice cracked, “…she looked like an angel on a cloud.”

His hand gripped the back of his neck.

“Next to her—on the floor—was Donovan… finishing with Rebecca.”

A cold wave crashed through me.

“I ripped him off her… but she was already gone.”

“Graham—”

“No. I have to say it. I’ve never said it out loud.”

He turned to me, eyes blazing—rage and grief colliding in a storm he couldn’t contain any longer.

“He’d slit her throat. And was still inside her when I got there. Her body was still warm.”

My breath locked itself in my throat. The image scorched itself behind my eyes.

“My sweet Wren…” he rasped, “she’d been gone a whole day. Bec had to sit there… with our baby’s body. While that monster?—”

He broke off, swallowing hard, jaw clenched so tight it trembled.

I dug my nails into my palms.

How was he still standing?

“When I got him off her, I lost it.”

His voice was absolute glass and gravel.

“I beat the shit out of him. Pulled out my knife and slit him ear to ear, just like he did to Bec. Then, I don’t know why I did it but finished him off—Mozambique style—two in the chest, one in the head.

Fucker didn’t deserve a quick end to his suffering.

But I did it anyway. Then I drilled a giant hole in his fucking chest until the gun was empty. ”

Graham didn’t blink, just stared at the floor ahead of him.

“The team found me cradling Rebecca. Rocking her. Sobbing. Running my fingers through her hair… telling her everything would be okay.”

He glanced at his hands as he rubbed them together.

“It was the only lie I’d ever told her.”

His gaze drifted—far away.

“Funny thing is, I don’t really remember it. Not like I was there. More like I was watching someone else do it.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. The ache in my chest burned like a slow, spreading frostbite.

“A few weeks later, I lost it. Tore the whole goddamn house apart—everything but a few things I tossed in a box. I haven’t opened that box since. I can’t. Seeing their stuff, smelling her perfume… it fucking wrecks me.”

He exhaled hard, like he was dragging glass from his lungs.

“I left. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be around the ghosts. I’ve got a few things she gave me—still in Colorado. But I can’t bring them here. It hurts too much.”

He pushed off the counter and began pacing again.

“I still hear her voice. And Wren’s laugh. And I thought I had it under control. I really did. And it was getting easier.”

He paused—barely breathing.

“Then you showed up.”

I flinched under the weight of that statement, but I didn’t stop him.

“Everything I felt for her came rushing back. Because they’re the same feelings that I have for you.”

His jaw tightened, and he looked at me, his eyes piercing mine.

“And now all I can think about is how I failed them. How I was the one person who was supposed to keep them safe, and I couldn’t. And now I failed you the exact same way . ”

My heart twisted. I reached out, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey…it’s okay. You didn’t fail me. You didn’t fail them.”

Graham recoiled like I’d struck him. His jaw clenched, eyes wild with frustration. “I did, Maggie—and no, it’s not okay!”

His voice cracked. And for the first time, I saw it—not just the fury, but the collapse underneath. The exhaustion. The hopelessness that ate him alive.

“I’m sick of everyone saying that. Because when— when is it actually going to be okay? Shouldn’t I be okay by now?”

His eyes glistened in the dim bathroom light, red-rimmed and pleading, and I couldn’t speak. Nothing I could have said would have even begun to tame the flaming wound on his heart. Nothing could have eased his pain.

And that was what hurt the most.

Graham

The silence in the room was deafening.

She should’ve said something by now. Anything.

Instead, all I could feel was this heaviness inside—her hesitation pressing against my chest like a goddamn anvil. I turned toward her.

She wasn’t even in the bathroom anymore.

My stomach bottomed out.

She was on the bed, curled around Chester like a goddamn ghost of herself. Knees tucked to her chest. Blank stare. Shaking.

Fuck.