Page 57 of Fear No Hell

Sam

C’mon, Mom, pick up the phone.

“You’ve reached Michelle. Please leave a message, and I’ll call you back at the first opportunity.” Beep.

“Jesus Christ, Mom, what the fuck.” My voice cracks on the last word.

I’ve never spoken to my mother like this before, but we’re at three-and-a-half months of radio silence where I’ve left voicemail after voicemail and hundreds of texts…

all of which have gone unanswered. If I hadn’t seen the "read" indicator pop on our message chain within seconds of me sending each message, I might have honestly believed she was dead. “I’ve called you so many times. Please. Please just fucking call me back. I’m worried.”

Even if we weren’t trying to get answers about her cryptic comments about my life and my father’s weird ramblings about the occult, I would still be trying to contact her. We have never—not once in my entire damn life—gone without talking for this long.

I’ve gone to her house several times. Her car is never in the driveway, and nobody answers the door.

The one time I let myself into the house using my key and waited, I was there for six fucking hours.

She didn’t come home once during that time.

The only thing that kept me from spending the night was knowing Lila was waiting for me.

I slam my finger down on the End Call button, wishing like hell that rotary phones were still a thing. At least with a rotary phone, slamming the handset into the cradle felt cathartic. With a grumble, I chuck my cell onto the table, dropping my head into my hands.

From behind me comes Lila’s voice. “No luck?”

I lift my head and turn to her, shrugging helplessly.

“She’s never ghosted me like this. Even when she had me committed after—” I flap my hand, letting the gesture summarize everything from my amputation to my suicide attempt to my failed efforts to break into my father’s house to rescue the woman in the attic.

Lila crosses the kitchen, sliding into the chair next to me and tugging it closer until her knees are nudging up against mine under the table.

I give her a half smile before glowering at my phone where it lies stubbornly silent on the table. Despite my pointed glare, it stays that way. I let it sit for a few more minutes then grab it again, opening up my text messages to click on the chain with my mother.

Please, Mom, call me back. I need you.

“Hey.” Lila wraps her fingers around mine as she slips the phone out of my grip with her free hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

My gaze lifts to hers as she squeezes my hand tightly.

It doesn’t matter that we’re trying to unravel a mystery millennia in the making or that Lila’s mother just dropped a whole goddamn bombshell we can’t even begin to understand.

It doesn’t matter that I just finished my residency and took over a month off, which is—apparently—what you do when the love of your life is possibly a daimonic goddess.

Objectively, every part of this shitshow is a mess and matters immensely.

When Lila touches me, though, all of it falls away, and the rest of the world stops having any meaning beyond her.

I flip my hand over, resting my palm against hers. “I know.”