Page 26 of Haunt

“You like it?” Billy asks in a low voice, my eyes dragging themselves back to him.

I look up, his chin to his chest, our hands still linked, his eyes down on mine.

“What is this place?” I whisper, eyes unable to stop from continuing to glide across the vast room.

“The Baptistry.”

I blink at that, unsure of how to respond. I don’t know what this means.

“Why are we here?” I whisper, feeling like if I speak too loudly, someone may shush me.

A slow smirk pulls across his lips, his eyes dropping to his feet, chin still tucked into his chest, he licks his lips, drags his gaze back up to mine.

“For the sacrifice, of course,” he whispers sinisterly, I feel my mouth pop open, a crease forming quickly between my brows.

There are so many questions, I don’t know which to start with. I shake my head as though to clear my thoughts, perhaps my ears. I can’t have heard that right.

“Billy, I-”

“Shhhh, trust me, I’ll make it good for you, Little Lamb,” he draws our joined hands up towards his chest, pounds them over his heart, drops his voice to such a low whisper, I can hardly hear him. “It only beats for you, remember that. It is yours.Iam yours, Nellie.”

A grin stretches across his face, his lips curling up high at the corners. It carves his face like a skeleton in the shadows, cheeks dimpled, hollowed. I swallow dryly, my heart hammering against my sternum. Everything inside of me rebelling against whatever it is I have just stepped into.

“Billy,” I say again, nervously, my body trembling, “I’m frightened.”

“Ohhh,shhh, beautiful girl,” he smiles, stepping into me, his thumb brushing a lock of dark hair behind my ear. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

And then I’m grabbed from behind. A hand clamping over my nose and mouth, an arm banding across my heaving chest. My feet are lifted from the floor as I’m dragged backwards against a firm chest. My nails claw over the back of Billy’s hand, tearing the skin from his knuckles as he tries to get me to release him. I want to sob, but, instead, panic flaring through me like an explosive, I kick my flailing legs. Try to rock my head back, arms pinned by my sides like I’m wearing a human straitjacket. Billy doesn’t move. Small smile still present on his lips, he glances down, bringing his clawed hand up, surveying the damage before casually sliding both hands into his pockets.

His light eyes watch me as I’m torn backwards, away from him. My eyes wide, nostrils flaring, lack of oxygen beneath the cold hand of my captor making my eyes stream.

That’s when I hear it again.

The chains.

Coils of heavy metal sliding along one another fills my ears like snakes slithering over one another. A sob rips its way from my chest up my throat, but nothing comes out other than a muffled moan. I stop kicking, stop struggling, watching the boy I love let me be manhandled by a stranger. I still completely, going lax, muscles burning as I loosen the tension in them. I watch him, a tear tracking down my face, onto my captor’s hand as they tear me away from him. He frowns then, blinking hard, nostrils flaring, like he’s seeing something he doesn’t like. It makes me want to laugh.

I don’t know how I ended up here.

Billy Blackwell is a beautiful liar.

My heart is heavy, thudding slowly now, defeat thick in my blood. It’s like suddenly realising my soul has been carrying around a corpse all this time. The other half of me doesn’t exist anymore. Perhaps he hasn’t existed for the last twelve years.

Billy Blackwell is dead and in his corpse a demon resides.

Possessed by something else.

Animated by evil.

And yet, there is still a tiny piece of me hoping I’m wrong.

I close my eyes, unable to look at him any longer. It is a lie. His pretty face, light eyes, dimpled smile. It’s all wrong, warped and twisted now, tarnished.

“Penelope.”

I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, pressure across the bridge of my nose from the side of my captor’s hand. I hope he breaks it. My breaths come short and sharp in the sweaty cupping of his cold hand. Moisture from my panicked breaths slicking his skin, when it is suddenly torn from my face, my body yanked into a familiar one.

My hands claw at his shirt, the stretch of tight fabric knotting between my fingers as I fist it. Sobbing into his chest, his arms band around me, one hand cradling my skull, the other low on my spine.

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