Page 5 of The Shadowed Oracle (The Bonded Worlds #1)

Ingrid straightened up, unrushed, and finished pouring the drink she’d been in the middle of mixing.

Once it was placed on the well where the servers would pick it up, she wiped her hands on her bar rag, snatched her phone from her purse down below, and walked casually to the back of the restaurant.

She didn’t look back, didn’t break her casual pace, but once secure in the closet-sized manager’s office, sitting in that swivel chair Franky had broken in, she allowed herself a moment of unease.

Her thoughts cast off in a hundred different directions at once.

What if he was dangerous? Unwell? Violent?

And she was stuck back here, unable to protect her friend?

If something were to happen, she didn’t know if she could handle more guilt in her life.

She’d spent most of her twenties stringing together stupid decisions.

Her memories were full of rage-fueled confrontations, self-destructive life choices, and things she couldn’t even bring herself to remember.

Each one of those memories, as vague and hazy as they were, still took turns visiting her in the night.

She quickly found the number, wasting no time glancing at those terse messages, then hit the call button. After a few rings, she stood at the door and opened it just enough to see the bar.

Where she could see him .

Kyle Twyker was talking to Franky, standing just a few feet away from him. The discussion didn’t seem heated, and her boss had yet to resort to his infamous “intimidation pose” he used to eighty-six rowdy patrons.

Ingrid held the phone to her ear as it rang, watching them.

No answer. No movement or pause from Kyle Twyker to indicate his phone was ringing. She hung up, considered taking her purse and the gun concealed inside, but left it as she stepped into the hallway and walked through the packed restaurant.

When she was close enough to spit on her alleged stalker, she stopped, studying him with a vicious scan.

And what she found was… unremarkable.

He was so thin, frail almost, especially next to her boss’ considerable size.

In the mythification of Mr. Twyker over the last few days, he’d somehow grown in her mind.

His sunken eyes were menacing, and his thinning, oily brown hair was grotesque.

But now, up close, those only served to make him seem smaller in every way.

“How’s it going?” Ingrid said simply, her expression communicating an entirely different message to Franky.

It’s not him.

Franky returned her searching glare with one of his own, scolding and squinting, almost in disbelief that she was there right in front of him. “It’s, uhh, I was just telling this gentleman…” He gestured to the potential stalker. “I was telling him he’s no longer welcome here.”

“And I was asking him why,” Kyle Twyker barked. His voice was nasally, whiny, adding to the disappointment. “What the hell did I say?”

“You don’t remember?” Ingrid asked.

Kyle shook his head indignantly.

“You stood up there.” She pointed to the scene of the crime. “After I rejected your half-assed advances, you stood on that barstool and you screamed at everyone.”

Kyle Twyker took a step forward. “What…did I… say ?” The repetition was sharp, and threatening, but Ingrid jabbed right back.

“It was forgettable.”

Franky jutted one of his elbows into her, reminding her to keep cool. By this point, a small crowd of employees and patrons had drawn in closer, trying to listen in.

“It doesn’t matter what you said,” Franky grunted. “The only thing that matters is that you broke the rules. So you can’t come back. Understand? Sir?”

Kyle Twyker wouldn’t answer, only glared.

“Do you understand ?”

“What if I don’t?” Kyle replied finally. “What if I don’t understand?” He’d gradually noticed the audience and was trying to cause a scene. “Would you explain, at least? Or do you just deny service to whoever you want?”

Franky shook his head, calmly stuffing his hands in his pockets. The seasoned manager was well aware of the peculiar effect Ingrid had on certain men. They wanted to be seen. They wanted her time, her energy, even if it was wholly negative.

“Go back to the bar, kid,” he said to her. “He’s not worth it.”

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t feel good,” Ingrid whispered half-heartedly, and placed a hand on Franky’s shoulder, giving a rare physical show of gratitude as she turned to leave.

“Fuck you!”

The shrill scream hooked itself on her ear, tugging her back.

Ingrid turned to face the sound and said, “What was that?”

“You heard me. I said fuck you , bitch!”

Kyle Twyker transformed the half-second before the words left his mouth. It was just like that night he’d gotten drunk and made a scene. Such an enormous shift in such a short amount of time. In a heartbeat, all of the ugliness inside of him came barreling out in a psychotic string of curses.

“You bitch! I’ll fucking kill you! You…you evil whore!”

Two of the larger male bystanders stepped closer, and with their help, Franky began shepherding the madman out the door. All Ingrid could hear was the tone of the screams, not the actual words as she casually took her spot behind the bar again. Back to her constricted comforts.

She grabbed a bar ticket and examined it—vodka soda, lime—and went to work like nothing had happened.

This was her safe place, her home , she repeated to herself.

This is your home.

While she could, she would cherish that.

She looked to the clock hanging next to the wine glass rack and did the math. Four hours . Four hours until close. Four hours to drown in the chaos of the crowd. Four hours before she had to lock up, go home, and face the real challenge still standing in her way.

It wasn’t over.

The mystery man on the other side of the phone, the man behind the digital curtain, he was sharper than this thin-skinned cretin. That vague, backwards way in which the stalker terrorized her, making himself seem like the concerned one, the savior, that didn’t seem like Kyle Twyker at all.

And so, when those precious four hours were up, and the third strange message arrived late that night, Ingrid wasn’t at all surprised.

“I’ll take care of him,” she read aloud, quietly laughing to herself as she scanned the strange message over a second time.

“I’ll take care of him.”

It was too ironic not to laugh.

The stalker was not Kyle. The stalker was going to “take care of” Kyle for her. Maybe he’d “take care of” a few of the other undesirable patrons of hers, Ingrid thought, make her life that much easier while he was at it. Maybe she could turn this to her advantage.

She laughed louder this time, filling the emptiness of her apartment. It was all she could do. She was no longer angry. She was numb to it. Numb as when first sustaining a blunt injury, before the nerves caught up and the bruising set in. Before the real pain began.

It wasn’t over.

Later that night, Ingrid sat crouched in her bathtub with the shower running, eyes closed while the warmth from the water was massaging her head. Gentle scents of peony permeated the air and the repetitive pelting sound on the tile acted as white noise.

It was a routine she’d created when the waking nightmares became too real.

Too relentless. Too close. Her shared bathroom in the group home was perpetually occupied by the other girls, but almost in mercy, the worst of her torment came in the dead of night.

She’d sneak out of bed, careful not to wake the young ones stacked in bunk beds next to her, disappearing into the dark corridors until she reached the bathroom furthest from the nuns’ quarters.

Whether it was the fluorescent overhead lighting, the calming sound of the water, or the fact that Ingrid was so confident in the process… it worked. The shadowy creatures would slink back into the darkness, and the visions that almost always came with them would become fuzzy.

Go away.

Go… away.

But the onslaught continued that night, more aggressive than usual.

The strange messages seemed to amplify the nightmares, altering her mental state enough to create something harder to fight off.

Three repulsive white visages with black fangs and black tongues came barreling at her.

The shadow of a bent-kneed, rapier-thin figure hovered over her shoulder.

A pallid, bloodless ghoul with a gash the size of a tennis ball where its left ear should’ve been widened its mouth as if to scream, but no sound followed.

The nightmares came one after the other, like they had minds of their own. They never spoke. They did not have clear enough voices to do so. Yet they always seemed to convey that one devastating message: give up . End the misery, admit she was broken, once and for all.

This was where the visions would come in.

At their worst, snippets of her past would flash before her eyes.

She’d see the nearly empty apartment she lived in with her father.

She’d see the shell of a man that her father became at the end of their time together, passed out in a pile of empty bottles.

She’d see herself sitting on the cold floor of the living room, no electricity, the sparse amount of food in the fridge already spoiling.

It was like the nightmares were trying to remind her—she’d never known love, and never would.

But she didn’t give up. She never had.

Years earlier, she’d gone to all manner of doctors for help.

Even those who didn’t call themselves doctors who practiced things from faraway places and long-forgotten times.

Acupuncture, exorcists, strict dieting and exercise, seances and spiritual rituals.

They all proved futile, of course, but even then, she didn’t quit.

She turned to temporary fixes instead. New poisons, both street and pharmaceutical, then washing it down with alcohol for what was already poisoning her from the inside.

The inebriation didn’t solve anything, but it did dull the senses enough to instill a healthy amount of carelessness. Due to her impossibly high tolerance (inherited from her father, no doubt) it was easy to work while under the influence, making it far from a cry for help.

It was a screaming mantra of “fuck it” to the world.

She would never give up.

“Fuck off,” she whispered through her teeth, smacking her head a few times before graduating to a full slap across her face, causing her ears to ring, the heat welling in her jaw, her eyes.

“Fuck off!” she demanded.

“FUCK OFF!”

Almost in answer, the shower curtain fluttered and the lights seemed to dim. Her eyelids jolted open, watching breathlessly as she sank further into her crouch, peering over her knees.

The curtain shifted again.

It wasn’t a waft of air. It wasn’t a shadow. It was a pitch-black hand appearing from behind the white fabric, pulling it open slowly.

“No,” she whispered. “Go away. You can’t hurt me.”

The visions didn’t comply. That dark something wormed its way inside and showed her more suffering, more hopelessness.

It enveloped her whole before expanding into a dark and twisted landscape in every direction.

Her eyes were still wide. She was awake.

She was lucid. Still in her shower, but nothing else about her surroundings looked like home.

Ingrid saw rotting trees toppling to the ground and being devoured by the soil. She saw deformed creatures feeding on rancid flesh. She saw everything good and full of life perish under unstoppable nothingness. A void swallowing the Earth and all of humanity.

She saw the end of the world. The end of everything as she knew it. In every way that mattered, it was real. Looked real. Felt real. Just as real as her drive to work every day, and just as believable as the people she interacted with. It was real, for the moment.

They can’t hurt me , she reminded herself. It’s only in my mind.

Her sick, uncooperative mind. That was all. It couldn’t touch her. If the nightmares could reach out and harm her, they would’ve.

“Please,” she said under her breath. “Please go away.” Not begging now, nor pleading nor cursing, but requesting. As if she’d become so familiar with the monsters and the visions that she felt she owed them some social decorum.

Just for tonight—please not tonight.

Come back tomorrow.

Tomorrow I can take it.

Just not tonight.

No more tonight.

But there would be no respite.

That night, there was no rest for the hunted.