Page 56 of Possessed By Shadows

He chuckled. I loved that sound. He helped me stand, even holding my hips so when the joint protested and almost gave out, he kept me upright. After a minute I could stand, and made my way to the wall closet to find clothes.

“Are you staring at my ass?” I teased as I pulled out some basics. Picking sweat pants, and a long sleeve sweatshirt, since I could feel the chill in the air.

“It is a fine ass,” Micah agreed.

“You can play with it later. If I can play with yours.”

“Like you have the focus, when I’m eating your ass, to do more than babble incoherently.”

I turned to gape at him. “Hey now…” Not that what he said was untrue at all. Who knew ass play could be that fucking good? “Okay, I’ll play with yours first. My tongue hasn’t stretched your hole for a few days.”

He gave me a pained look and adjusted himself like his jeans had suddenly become too tight. At least our affection went both ways. Most days I felt he was way out of my league.

“Why is Dion coming?” I prodded him. He had a couple egg sandwiches in the toaster oven. My brain said I should probably eat, but my stomach disagreed. Necessity and all that. I tugged on the clothes, then went into the bathroom to pee, put on some deodorant and brush my teeth again, just in case Micah wanted a little more playtime once Dion left.

When I found my way back to the kitchen he had a plate for me with a sandwich, one of those preprocessed things with an egg for the top and bottom rather than a bun. But he’d topped it with real cheese, ham and avocado for me, adding two bananas to the side, and left his mostly plain.

I eyed his plate, thinking he needed to eat more. Micah often skipped eating until late afternoon. Part habit, part his stomach not wanting food early. I’d have to check the fridge before we left to make sure there was a good spread for dinner in there. I’d make him something nice. He waved at me to eat as he picked his sandwich apart. No cheese for him. Just eggs, and likely turkey sausage which I would end up eating for him.

“Dion?” I prompted.

“She’s going to cleanse the house. Show us how to do it.”

We’d had a half-dozen smudges of the flat and the surrounding garden to try to help with the night noise. No change. The first time the sound had been absent a few days, then returned. It had given me hope that if we did it enough, we could keep the nights quiet. But the next few times the sound returned fast, sometimes not even absent a single night. Psychological? Could we cleanse the psychological demons that way? I didn’t think so.

“More focused on Precious,” Micah added.

“Are we exorcising the ghost cat?” It seemed a bit rude after I’d brought her home with us so she wouldn’t constantly be charged with negative energy from Freya’s house guests at the B&B.

“Not exactly. Mostly trying to remove the negative loop?” He held up his hands like he wasn’t sure where to begin. “She was doing fine and so were you until this mess with Lukas. But I don’t want her feeding you nightmares. You’re too sensitive to her whims.”

“Sensitive to the whims of a ghost cat,” I said. It sounded ridiculous.

“But not untrue. When you finally woke from the nightmare, Jet was really agitated and Precious was laser focused on you.”

I sighed and got up to wrap my arms around him. He sank into my hug, breathing me in as much as I partook of him, the two of us life rafts, stuck together in an endless ocean of turbulent waves. At least it wasn’t always that way. Sometimes we just floated in calm seas. “If you think this will help.”

“Sounds like the key is finding something webelievewill help.”

“Like psychological conditioning? Believe it and it becomes true?” I wasn’t a fan. Too many years buried in military facts to brainwash myself.

“More giving ourselves personal strength? Power? Maybe confidence? We’ll ask Dion when she gets here.” He let go and I missed him immediately, wishing we could go back to bed. But he took our empty plates to the kitchen and I found my phone, praying for a message from Lukas. Nothing.

Micah seemed a bit on edge. Shoulders tense, gaze on the windows outside, like he expected Dion to show up any minute. But in our home, with the dozens of wards outside, we’d always felt pretty secure. Had my nightmare unraveled that? I thought back over the past few months and tried to recall if I’d had any episodes. Only one occurrence of a PTSD blackout that I could recall which had been shortly after Halloween. But again, I hadn’t attacked anyone. Instead, warning everyone away from the ghosts or whatever had been fucking with my head that night.

Dreams, well they came and went. The military memories weren’t always of that day and blood-soaked sands. Though the bad stuff popped up a lot more than any glory days. Not that there was a real thing such as glory days in my military time. Surviving had been cause for celebration. The days between attacks had become a monotonous holding pattern, always on edge, waiting for a strike. Which left dreams to the true nightmares, or vague wanderings that had nothing to do with my time serving.

“What’s wrong,” I asked, not willing to let my head go wild with worry. Micah’s brain was loud, or at least that’s how he described it. Always a billion what-if scenarios rolling at any time.

“I don’t want to add to the negative energy.”

“Maybe we should so we can have that cleansed rather than adding it later and having to do it again?” What wasn’t he telling me? “Micah?”

“I charged Lukas’s camera.”

“Okay.”

“And watched it.”