Page 50 of Nightshades
I forgot he was here.
“What?” I sneer, annoyed that he interrupted me.
I’m fascinated by this house. I like that it isn’t perfect. I like that it needs work. To be forgotten doesn’t necessarily mean it lasts forever; only until someone notices how special it is, and can breathe life into it again.
“This is Farington Place,” he says again, as if I am supposed to know what it means.
“And?”
“A brutal murder happened here. It was about fifty years ago, and the house has been empty ever since.”
“Murdered?” I chuckle at the irony. “What happened?”
“No one knows. It’s a cold case. They say it was murder suicide, and the only survivor was the son. He owns this house.”
I’ll have to visit this son. I want this house for me and Lula. I have enough money if I can figure out how to get it from my bank account. My assets might be frozen because of my being gone for so long.
Lula will love trying to solve the cold case, and I can feel right at home being in a house that has tasted blood.
It’s a match made in Hell.
“What’s your name?” I ask him, pointing to the ruined couch. “Sit.”
“Ricky.” He sits on the end that isn’t broken, the springs creaking from years of being unused. The color of the material that makes up the couch is hidden under dark brown stains.
Mildew hangs in the air, and the hardwood under my feet cracks from my weight, threatening to give way.
“Ricky.” In the blink of an eye, I’m in front of him, his eyes glazed by my will. “How many women have you abused in your life? Do you know off the top of your head? And be honest.” I poke him in the middle of his forehead. “Because I can scent your lies. And with every lie you tell, I’m breaking a finger.”
He settles deeper into the couch, spreading his legs as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “I don’t know, man. A couple dozen? Maybe. I don’t like it when they tell me no.”
I wish I could see inside his head. I wonder if his mind is rotten, coated in darkness like mine. I suppose I’m similar to him in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to Lula.
In the rancid unknown of pitch-black night, where wrongs live, Lula cannot be found. She’s better than the abyss of an empty, damned core. She is the light that has somehowpenetrated the deepest depths of the broad ocean in my chest, in my mind.
Reaching for her light is what I fear.
I realize that now, while staring at Ricky, a man who didn’t appreciate the sun radiating from her skin.
I’m so damaged. I’m beyond repair. My humanity is gone. I do not care who I harm, who I kill, who I torture in the name of protecting what is mine.
And yet, what if all the reaching, all the craving for her light, what if I’m not strong enough to hold it? What if her light burns away the sin that made me? What would I be then?
I lean down, placing one hand on either side of his shoulders, caging him in. The green skin is bright against the discolored sofa. I don’t like that he can’t see the real me, the monster he should be afraid of. He will once I enter his mind, and I can’t wait much longer.
The terror he instills in women will finally be felt in him the moment his eyes land on my true form.
“I told you everything. Just let me go, and I promise, I won’t tell a soul?—”
A root slithers down my arm, forcing his lips apart, and filling his mouth so he can no longer speak.
“Silence,” I hiss, flashing my long, sharp fangs that have been aching to slice into Lula’s neck. “Hearing you speak is like nails against my bones.”
His eyes are broad, so round that I can see the bright whites and red blood vessels. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move. Tears gather, knowing his life is over, and the mourning drips down his cheeks.
“Let me see what you fear, Ricky.”
He shakes his head, his subconscious begging to be freed. He is now in the shackles of my evil, and he will never have the privilege to feel a woman’s softness again.