Page 16 of Possession
“I guess I’ll stop breathing then,” I snarked back.
He had already given me permission to stay, so I didn’t understand why he had an attitude. Time seemed to slow as the atmosphere grew heavy, lulling me into a cocoon of security.
And just as I thought he’d fallen asleep, his voice caught me off guard. “What happened?”
His question, murmured in the dark, made me unravel. I trusted him.Only this once.
“I had the same nightmare…like it's on repeat since my sixteenth birthday.”
“Tell me.”
I gulped, then turned on my side towards him, my gaze tracing the outline of his frame as he stared up at the ceiling.
“There’s a man…from another time,” I said, quiet and cautious. “I-I only get small snapshots. He’s not fully formed. But, Grey…I can feel him watching me—always watching.”
Greyson shifted sideways, mirroring my position, his face hovering in front of mine.
“It’s only a dream. No one’s going to hurt you. Go to sleep, Ada.”
“I just told you. I can’t.”
“I’m here now,” he said, so straightforward. As if that was the answer to all my troubles.
I closed my eyes, trying to force myself to relax. And, surprisingly, after a few minutes, my body began to unfurl, knowing I had someone watching over me. Even if only for a moment.
Relief weighed down my thoughts. Eventually, unconsciousness threatened to take me under when I heard a whisper—one so quiet I didn’t even know if it was real.
“Why did you come to me, little rabbit? I’m not the knight you think I am. I’m a monster…”
The words weren’t meant for me. They were private and self-deprecating, his mouth spouting the belief from the depths of his very soul. My mind immediately rejected the narrative.
Just before sleep could fully claim me, I said the truest statement I’d ever voiced in my life. “Mymonster.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Ada, darling. I thought you would save your virginity…wait for me.”
I remained in Greyson’s bed, wrapped in his duvet, staring at the bright red brooch neatly secured to the spirit’s tailcoat jacket.
“Why would I wait for you? You’re not real,” I admonished, repeating the mantra I had told myself over and over.
“I’m as real as you want me to be, darling.”
“I belong tohim. In every way that matters.”
“Yes, but does he belong to you?” my ghost asked, his tone mocking.
I held my breath as his pale, translucent fingers swept a stray hair off my face, his touch cool, yet scathing. “My poor, lost girl. Go and find this man who you have claimed as your own. Go searching for the monster who has stolen all…And when you see what there is to see, I will be waiting. Here, in your dreams.”
“Why?”Why do you want to ruin me? Why can’t you let me be happy? Why do you have to haunt me?
Despite those unspoken questions never being voiced into existence, he sensed them and answered each one with a single statement, giving me the vow he always did.
“You are mine in every lifetime.”
I woke up with a start. Hours had passed since Greyson had left me in his bedroom, requesting I be naked and ready for him when he returned with my second eighteenth birthday gift.
I waited and waited—until slumber took me to where my wraith appeared. His words lingered, swirling through my mind until my body moved on autopilot.
I slipped on one of Greyson’s shirts that came down to my mid-thigh, and ventured into the house barefoot. It was as if an invisible string was pulling me along, to follow a map to my own demise. Yet, I couldn’t stop, couldn’t backtrack, obsessively focused on following the innate compulsion to the end.