Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,18
the riverbed. That was the only way I knew where my house was. We’d had a slight hill and the riverbed in the backyard.
“I hope we don’t have to go too deep,” Colton said, “because there’s a ton of rock here.”
I finally figured out where we were, so I pointed in the general direction I thought my house had sat. “Over there, I think.”
“That’s a relief.” Colton began to shovel, the tool slicing cleanly into the dirt. “It’s sort of creepy to imagine digging beneath where your house was. It’s a little too horror movie.”
“That’s what creeps you out?” I asked. I sat on one of the cinder blocks. “Not the demon we’re going to find at the end of this?” That was our endgame. Mr. Chee was trying to awaken that demon in some dimension, and I had no doubt Erdirg was going to wake up in one realm and then head straight for ours. Unless he was already up. I was half-convinced he had to be.
The sun was getting lower in the sky, and I shivered a little bit. “Should we call Thorn and tell him we’re out here?”
“I will.” Oliver took his phone from his pocket and headed toward the cars.
“What can I do?” I asked as the guys added dirt to a growing pile.
Colt’s shovel hit something hard, the sound pinging. “Well. I found a rock, so you can help me lift it out.”
Aaron bent over before I could and grabbed his shovel, helping Colton pull the rock out.
I stood watching, with nothing to do, but it was like I’d run a marathon. I could hardly move. My whole body hurt. I rubbed at my arms and the exertion was almost too much. The world spun and my knees gave out. I hit the ground hard.
Crying out, I rolled left and right. Fuck. What was happening to me?
“Lacey?” Aaron stood over me first and Colton was suddenly at my side.
“Baby?” He smoothed his hand over my forehead as Aaron picked me up into his arms.
“She’s hot,” Colton spoke slowly, like through a fog.
I had to force myself to speak. “Hazy…”
I wasn’t sure how else to say it? And it didn’t matter anyway, because a second later I wasn’t with them. Not really. I mean, maybe I was. How was I supposed to know when nothing made sense?
I looked around, my head clearing. I was in the same place—but not. Because instead of Aaron staring down at me, it was his father who knelt over me. “Lacey?”
I nodded, sitting up on the ends of my elbows. Okay. This was odd. “You’re in a time loop. Am I in a time loop now, too? How did that happen?”
He offered me his hand, and I stood. When I’d been younger, he’d seemed like this daunting person. He didn’t smile much, and he’d been intimidating. But now? He was just another man. I was a grown up and maybe he had one of those resting mad faces that always looked annoyed even when they weren’t. Or maybe I didn’t care if he was constantly annoyed anymore.
It wasn’t my job to make people feel better. I was prickly, but I didn’t cause this.
“Did they move the rock?” He ran a hand through his hair.
I looked around. Wherever we were, the rock was back where it was before Colton had picked it up. So things were not exactly the same here. Interesting. “They did.”
“Good.” He paced back and forth from me to the hole in front of him. “That will help. They’ll uncover the blue calcite and atacamite when they do. Then Oliver will know what to do.”
Maybe he would if he could see past how angry he was with his father. Me being passed out was only going to make that worse. “How am I here?”
“You’re different somehow. There is something about you that straddles the paranormal, the other. You could see me in your dreams.”
He didn’t know the things we knew right now. “I’m not one hundred percent human. We think at some point one of my ancestors had a relationship with a fae or something. I’m part pouque.”
His eyes widened. “That makes so much sense. It’s the other in you that keeps drawing these things to you and allows you to converse with them the way that you do.”
I shook my head. “I’m not conversing with them. That would be a misunderstanding of what’s actually happening.” I took a deep breath and squared up to the man whose actions,