Page 81 of Lovesick

Single.

One.

But Father, his eyes are on mine, his chin lifted.

And even as Penelope takes the dagger, sawing off Balor’s hands, removing the parts that hurt her. Father Black watches, his gaze on her, a glint in them as blood paints her skin, the ‘clink’ of blade on bone, and I just know this isn’t over.

Chapter 31

PENELOPE

It seems it is always in the dead of night that noises erupt inside this house. Scratching, churning, drumming, scraping, and dragging

But on this night, I wake suddenly to a thud on the other side of our bedroom door, my eyes fly open, my hand automatically going to Billy’s side of the bed, the wrinkled sheets cool to touch.

I frown, my other hand going to the round curve of my belly, seven months into this pregnancy now and I still don’t know how I feel about it. I spent five months in Billy’s absence hiding it, waiting for him to come back to tell me what to do. And I’m too anxious to be excited, too frightened to enjoy any part of it. But fiercely protective, nonetheless.

I’m having checks every week, scans every other, the baby is healthy, growing well, already big, it’s still hard to believe such a large baby is tucked behind this tight wall of my abdomen.

I feel him kick, his little foot attacking the coolness of my palm where I press down over him. Butterflies clog my throat ina swirl of confusion as I stare at Billy’s empty side of the bed. He hasn’t left me once since he came back.

Always there to reassure me when I wake up in a sudden hot sweat, my skull full of nightmares.

Dread fills my gut, a tremble in my hands as I push myself over the side of the bed, legs dangling down, socked feet hitting the cold floor. I pull open my bedside drawer, fingers reaching blindly inside, finding it gone, the gun, the one Billy placed there. I slip down onto the floor, stretching my arm underneath the bed, finding that gun gone too, and real fear licks up my spine like the lash of a chain.

Something is wrong.

I tell myself I’m just going to head towards the library corner, that I left my weapons there when I was reading earlier in the day.

I’m being paranoid.

The echo of my footsteps across the suite aren’t being counted by listening ears.

No one is watching me from the deepest shadows in the far corners of the room.

But the air is thick, and my pulse is a trapped bird, battering itself against my ribs with wild, frantic wings.

Then I hear it.

Knuckles on wood.

Boots pounding.

My heart is rushing blood around my body at a trillion miles an hour and I fear I’m going to pass out. I turn, hair whipping out in an arc, and a bag is coming down over my head, my scantily clad body is being held prisoner by another, and I’m breathing in the strong sweet smell of disinfectant. My head swims, limbs loosening, and then my feet are unsteady beneath me, and I’m scooped effortlessly upwards into the arms of someone who isn’t my Pair.

“Penelope.”

My ears buzz, my vision blurring as I strain with every effort to open my eyes.

“Penelope.”

“Billy?” I manage to force out, a cough working its way up my dry throat, my tongue rejecting it with a gag, it feels like I’ve swallowed sand.

“Penelope,” he says again, so much like my Billy, but also not really like him at all.

It’s Milus’s voice that I wake to, my entire being stiffening, my hands smacking into the arms of the wooden chair I find myself slumped in, pushing me up to stand. But my legs wobble like jelly, my ankles collapsing like slinky toys, and I flop back down onto the hard surface of the chair before my backside is barely off the seat.

He tuts, my eyes focusing much more quickly now, in my panic, and I squint hard across the softly lit room, finding him sitting before a roaring fire. His legs crossed casually, elbow resting on the fabric arm of the high backed armchair he sits in, chin propped on his curled fist.