him, Adam gave a loud exhale. “Emil, please. Let’s just sleep on it.”
Yeah. They could do that. In separate beds.
Chapter 19 - Adam
Adam was hot as hellfire despite the air prickling his skin with needles of ice. The dichotomy between the scorching heat of his insides and the cold grass created steam clouding Adam’s mind, as if someone had tossed ice cubes into flames.
His palms throbbed with pain, but a growing sense of confusion flooded his senses when he opened his eyes, tasting apples.
He was naked.
He wasn’t in bed.
He wasn’t even inside a house, and for precious seconds, he stared at the pale drops of dew on the lush green carpet beneath him, unable to explain what happened. Confusion turned to terror when he raised his head and glanced at his hands, which rested on the cool, uneven surface of a large rock.
Its porous structure was streaked with what Adam thought to be red paint at first, but when he realized the liquid was still soaking into the stone, his breath sped up, and he turned his hands without thinking.
Icy from being held against something so cold, they hardly felt like his own, but by the time he saw twin gashes running across his palms and the crust of dried blood, his heart dashed into gallop, as if it were trying to run from this place as fast as possible.
Adam’s breath wheezed when recognition stepped in. Fighting for air, he looked up, all the way to the top of the cliff above the Devil’s Rock he and Emil had stumbled upon on Kupala Night. The sky was a dusky gray, already touched by sunlight yet still drained of color.
With a sense of deja vu, he saw shadowy figures around him, candles, and an empty basket on the unnaturally smooth upper surface of the boulder. The tree crowns high above spun like a carousel, and he had no recollection of getting here, nor would he be able to find his way back to the parsonage.
The answer was so obvious, yet he didn’t want to accept it.
He’d been possessed again. Only this time he had no idea what horrible, outrageous, or immoral things he’d done while under the demon’s influence.
He screamed out when soft wool touched his arm, but when he spun his head, ready to fight, he was baffled rather than terrified.
Filip Koterski, the forest ranger, covered Adam’s naked body with a thick blanket. “It’s okay, you’re safe,” he said.
“H-huh?” Adam uttered, so thoroughly shaken he couldn’t make himself get up, though panic was sinking its claws into him already.
Had the devil made him sleep with Koterski and didn’t even leave him with a recollection of it?
“How did I get here?” he asked, wrapping himself in the blanket nevertheless. His feet were ice cold, and all he wanted was to sneak into Emil’s warm bed… but that would never happen, because there was one thing he could recall about last night for certain—Emil’s home had burnt down.
The ranger smiled as if finding Adam naked in the woods with his hands cut was nothing out of the ordinary. “You returned.”
Adam uttered a sharp laugh. And wrapped himself with the blanket even more tightly. His gaze drifted to his own blood on the rock, and he stood as the birches around him sang a soft tune. “So you saw me sleepwalking? I know one shouldn’t wake people up in that kind of situation, but you took that quite far…”
Koterski’s face revealed nothing, but his eyes shone with fascination and glee that sent unpleasant shivers down Adam’s back. “I’m sorry. You looked very much at peace. I only saw you when you entered this area and followed, because it was unusual.”
“So you assumed I make a habit of walking around naked?” Adam tried to make it sound like a joke, but his heart thudded like crazy when he noticed the content expression on Koterski’s face. The black hole in his memory had him terrified.
“I guess I was curious.” Koterski shrugged. “But you’re the one who cut your hands and marked the Devil’s Rock. What should I make of that, Father?”
Adam’s knees weakened, and he looked back at Koterski, who turned from a parishioner like any other into a snake that could sink its venomous fangs into his flesh at any moment. “I can’t recall any of that. I sleepwalked, remember?”
The rapid thud of hooves sent Adam’s senses into panic, and he stepped closer to the altar, spinning around just in time to see Emil