Page 67 of Cursed Shadows 5

Daxeel reaches out his arm for the kitchen counter, where the crumbs are peppered around smears of butter and a drop of blackberry jam. He releases the pup—and predictably, it gallops for the leftovers.

He watches as it sticks its nose into the paper bag of bread and starts to chew through what’s left.

Now, he should leave.

Close the door and abandon the dwelling.

Nari will come back and find the pup—and that will be that. No words spoken; no interaction.

She doesn’t want to see him.

Why would she?

Of all the boundaries he has crossed, he finds himself stuck at this one. If Nari chooses to never see him again, how can he plague her with his presence?

It would bring no good.

And… if he is honest with himself, seeing her…

It might break him.

So yes, he should leave. Now. Before anyone returns to the dwelling.

Yet, he finds himself reaching for the doorknob and rattling it—his gaze fixed on the latch. Stuck.

He grunts.

It isn’t that Eamon and Nari don’t want to lock their door, but that it doesn’t lock.

He hesitates for a moment, just a moment, before he threads out a small knife from his belt and brings it to the screws on the latch.

Daxeel should leave; and yet, he stays and takes apart the latch, cleans it of the debris built over years, then puts it back together again.

The door locks now. But he isn’t done.

He washes the dishes.

Then, he finds himself at the hearth. Stacked high with ash and soot and stink. He cleans it out.

Every time he thinks he has completed a job and it is time to go, that he is cutting it too close to Nari’s return, he finds another task to do. He oils the hinges of the doors, aligns the crooked windows, takes out the rubbish buried under the sink.

It's when he is in the bedroom of the dwelling, reattaching the lopsided door to the wardrobe that he hears the rattle.

He pauses, forearm braced against the semi-attached door; hand gripping the small knife that cuts into the screws of the hinges—and he listens.

Again, the rattle comes from the other side of the dwelling, this time frustrated. It’s followed by the faint murmur, the voice that slingshots a panicked sensation through him.

A curse from familiar lips.

Nari…

She’s out there, in the hallway, trying to open the door—but it is latched. Locked.

And he is inside, in her bedroom.

An icy sensation flurries through him.

His throat thickens for a beat, then he swerves his stare back to the hinges. He rushes it but twists the knife around and around to tighten the screws.

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