Page 16 of Phobia
What in the actual fuck?
Was I seeing things? I held my breath, willing the damn thing to do it again. Blue eyes bulged and shook, the red veins protruding before it relaxed once more.
“It blinked,” I blurted, my knees wobbling.
Holy fucking shit. It. Blinked. At.Me.
Or attempted to, anyway.
“What?” Adam questioned from behind me.
I lifted a shaking hand to the shorter figure, pointing at it. “Heblinked.” He, because it was no longer just an inanimate object. What the hell was going on in here?
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you,” Adam assured, shaking his head. His chuckle was tight. “They’re not real.”
Yeah, tell that to someone who hadn’t believed in Santa Claus until she was fifteen. Gritting my teeth, my shoulders squared. I knew how it sounded, but… I knew what I saw, too.
“Adam, I’m telling you,” I argued, staring into the face of the shortest of the Founding Father figures. That son of a bitch had stared directly at me and attempted to communicate with me somehow. Glancing around the room, I studied the corners, finding the flicker of the security camera in the corner.
Was someone else watching us right now?
Confident in a way I hadn’t been all night, I engaged in a staring contest with the damn thing, imploring those waxy lids to twitch. I willed its eyes to shift again, but they didn’t.
But I knew what I saw.
My eyes stung, the dry air getting the better of me until I couldn’t stand it anymore and blinked rapidly to compensate.
Gritting my teeth, I met my husband’s dubious stare, my heart sinking. He didn’t believe me.
Adam rubbed his forehead, exhaling. “Baby,” he began, leaning over and touching the figure’s hand. “As much as I hate him, Wagner’s good at what he does. So were his grandfather and dad. It’s a known thing throughout town that their figures have a tendency to make you believe they’re real.”
But I ignored him. I concentrated on the figures, waiting for something. The roving of eyes, a blink, the distension.
Anything at all to fortify my claim.
Adam’s knuckles knocked against the figure’s hand, a hollowed sound greeting us to demonstrate its lifelessness. “This place will mess with your head if you allow it to. He designed it that way.”
My features collapsed into a frown, my pounding pulse drumming in my ears as I glanced back at the immobile figure again.
I knew what I saw, didn’t I?
Raking my fingers through my orange hair, frustration took over the anxiety. My logic and emotions were at war with one another. What was I really insinuating here? That there were people inside of the figures? Adam had already showed me by touching them. Not a scare actor. Not a person.
Just wax. Inanimate. Frozen.
So maybe he was right. Maybe this place was just playing tricks on me. It had been a long day, and I’d been up since five.
Blowing up into my bangs, I offered him a quick nod, conceding. “Okay.” But it didn’t stop me from peering at the figure one final time, waiting for a sign that would never come.
Chapter 5
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jogger as we stepped back out into the smoky main gallery, people milling around us in the fog, blue light pushing through while the bass of the music vibrated through the floors and thrummed loudly. My fingers brushed against my smokes before snagging on my phone.
I raised a brow, reading the message preview from Vince.
I’m heading out. You kids have fun.
Katrina leaned against me, flexing on her toes and craning her head to see. She was so nosy. Always had been, always would be. Shit, that nosiness had cost us our relationship. Indulging her, I lowered the phone and angled it her way so she could read it. She let out an ornery snort, glancing up at me through her false lashes. “Why the fuck did he even come if he was just going to bail?”
