Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,80
next time?”
He closes his eyes and sighs, pulling me into his chest and wrapping his arms around me. “I hope not.”
That night I fall back asleep in his arms. He doesn’t even give me an inch.
And I’m remembering the last thing Samantha said to me.
Don’t you want your baby to be safe?
Sixteen
A week passes without Samantha returning.
Things almost feel like normal again. I go out for lunch and drinks with Rebecca (sans Lucinda), and then we go shopping for her upcoming holiday party at her house renovating show. She invites Dex and me, saying the more the merrier, plus Dean and Seb will be there too. I guess the show has a big budget and an open bar, so why not? Plus I want to see how Rebecca is with her sexy co-star, Claire. Of course with Dean there, this might lead to some drama, but it might be the perfect distraction from my life.
I also finally got my IUD out, which felt like a momentous (albeit uncomfortable) occasion. Naturally we’ve been having sex non-stop since then, despite me reminding Dex that I only have a few days a month in which I can actually conceive. He doesn’t seem to care, of course. And I’m not complaining either.
As for Atlas, we haven’t talked to him since we last saw him. There’s been no point.
But we also haven’t been back to the house.
Honestly, it’s been weighing on me heavily. The fact that Max is still there, that we haven’t gone back for him. After everything he sacrificed for us, we’re just biding our time. Dex will say it’s because he wants to keep me as far from the house as possible after Samantha showed up in our kitchen.
But also, it’s because we don’t have anything to report.
Rose never got back to me. She’s on Facebook, but she unfriended me long ago so I’ve got nothing much to go on. It’s frustrating as hell because I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. It’s not like we can call Maximus up on the phone and let him know the score. We have no choice but to go to the house if we want to connect.
Which is what we’re doing tonight.
I know that it’s inviting trouble into our lives, and I know Dex isn’t happy about this, but something inside me tells me that we need to do this.
There’s something even deeper inside that tells me I might see Samantha again. That I’ll get answers about what she really wants from me.
You see, it has all come back. Every moment of when she walked out of the bathroom looking like an angel, every word she said, the way she felt when she kissed me.
Like ice.
So as much as it’s been a relief that I haven’t seen her, I’m also…missing it.
I know that sounds crazy.
My next appointment with Dr. Leivo isn’t for a bit, but if she could hear me today, she would probably come to the same conclusion. That I’m slowly losing my mind. Not quite in the way when I was possessed by Abby. In that, I had no choice. I was taken over. No, this is more like…invited possession.
Or maybe it’s obsession.
Which is scary in itself.
“So, what are we going to tell the big guy?” Dex asks me as we sit in the Highlander outside the house of horrors. “We tried our best, sorry?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
He muses over that for a moment, staring at me in the darkness of the car.
For once it’s a clear night and the stars are out, but it also means the temperature is dipping close to freezing. I want to hurry up and get in the house, because the longer Dex stares at me, the more anxious I get.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” he eventually asks.
I nod, teeth chattering. “Uh huh. Guess I’ve missed the guy.”
He raises a brow, not amused. “I don’t want this to be a mistake.”
“We have to go in there,” I remind him.
“You don’t have to. You can stay here.”
“Like hell I’m staying here with you in there alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s stayed away.” He licks his lips, twisting in the seat to face me. “Right? She’s been gone for a week. If you go back in there, you could be inviting her back into our lives. Perry, I know you think last time everything was fine but I don’t believe it for a fucking second. She’s a witch.”