cold wind whistles, I give in to that panic, hurrying my steps backward, keeping my eyes on the structure as if that would keep some monster from charging out of the place after me.
I trip. I’m not watching where I’m going. But I can’t drag my eyes away from the solarium so when I crash into something hard behind me, all the tension I’ve been trying to keep tamped down bubbles up, releasing into a scream so loud, it sends birds I didn’t know were even there noisily flying from the branches of the trees.
I bounce off whatever it was that was behind me almost falling to the ground until a strong pair of hands catches me.
I scream and scream until I hear him. Until he turns me, pulls me to him, and I feel his chest against my face and his hand cupping the back of my head and big, powerful arms holding me tight.
I scream until I know it’s Damian.
Damian again, like last time.
Damian rescuing me from yet another ghost.
And those tears I’d almost managed to hold back pour out in relief even as I see the dark look in his eyes when he glances at the solarium, that haunted place.
He turns back to me and searches my face as if to know what I’ve seen.
Does he know about the doll? The broken railing?
Does he know the place is haunted? Because I have no doubt it is.
15
Damian
I only found her because of the location device in her phone.
She’s soaked through, hair plastered to her face, coat sticking to her, useless against the rain.
She shifts her gaze to her hands. I glance down at the broken skin, the smears of blood. But when I look back up at her face, I see fear. The panic of the little girl I remember.
I want to shake her. Ask her what the fuck she thinks she’s doing out here in the woods, in the rain.
In that solarium.
But she’s shivering, so when she glances back at the hulking skeleton of the once-beautiful structure with a strange look in her eyes, I wonder if there are ghosts here after all. If Cristina sees them and if Annabel still haunts what was once her favorite place to play. If I’ve been waiting for her in the wrong spot all this time.
This is where everything changed for her.
Where she became the cripple who couldn’t crawl out of the burning car to save her life.
Guilt slashes my heart.
My fault.
Lucas is right. I break everything I touch.
I look at Cristina. At the sobbing, terrified girl she’s become. Helpless. Helpless against us. Against me. Vulnerable. Breakable.
So much like Annabel.
You’ll break her too.
He’s right.
“We need to get out of this rain,” I tell her as I hurry her along, catching her when she trips. I know these woods like the back of my hand, and I’m surprised that of all things, she found the solarium.
By the time we get to the work shed, rain is coming down hard. I decide to take shelter there and wait it out before going back to the house.
Cristina looks around as I fish my keys out of my pocket to unlock the padlock on the door. At least she’s not crying anymore.
Her eyes fall on the tree stump with the ax sticking out of it. Wood that needs to be chopped lies in a jumble around it. Stacked against the wall of the shed is cut wood covered by a tarp.
“Firewood for the house,” I tell her as I push the door open and gesture for her to enter. We source it from the forest, and I chop it myself mostly. It’s excellent stress relief.
Once inside, I light the lantern.
“Stay here.”
I leave her looking around as I exit to collect dry logs. She’s standing in the same spot when I return. She watches as I stack the wood in the stone fireplace and set about building a fire.
“Take off your wet things,” I tell her as I ball up old pages of an old newspaper and stack them along with smaller branches for kindling before lighting it. I watch it take, blowing on it a little before wiping off my hands and straightening.
“I can’t,” she says as she tries to undo the buttons of her coat with trembling hands.
Going to her, I take her wrists to look at her bloody, cut hands, then back at her face. She’s spooked. “You’re all right. You’re safe now, Cristina.”