to see you. Just right now is a little busy.”
“I get it. I do.” I didn’t actually because he’d not really explained anything. Surely, he would when he had the time.
“I was actually going in to work,” he said.
I tried to not remember what that woman said. “Oh. You meeting someone?”
“Ha. Only if it’s called a misbehaving register.”
I could have slapped myself for being suspicious. “That sucks.”
“It gets me out of the house for a few minutes. I can’t wait until tomorrow night,” he said.
His words eased something inside me. “Me, too.”
“Later.” He tapped the side of my car and stood.
No kiss. I was admittedly a little surprised and disappointed. Then again, we probably had an audience.
I made it home and ran my stuff upstairs like it was candy contraband in my teens. My grandmother hated me eating that processed crap. She called it poison.
I tossed my things onto the bed and stretched. Body parts popped. Getting old sucked. Every year, something didn’t work like it used to. Especially the joints. They made noises now. Sometimes ached when a storm was coming.
My phone beeped, and I dove for my purse on the bed. I juggled it, saw a notification about my lives being replenished for a game, and dropped it. Only as I scrambled on the floor to find it under the bed did my fingers touch the box.
Martin’s box.
Which was supposed to be in the trunk of my car.
How had it gotten back inside? And more importantly, when would I burn it?
I pulled it out and glanced at the second-to-last journal. Not the one he kept in prison but the one before he walked out. It started two years ago.
It didn’t prove hard to find out when he met his mistress. To see how he went from middle-aged man feeling guilty about cheating on his wife to full-blown adulterer who saw his wife as getting in the way of his happiness.
Helena understands me.
The statement oddly hurt. I’d understood Martin once upon a time. We’d been best friends and partners. We just grew apart, and instead of finding our way back, he moved on with someone else.
Then tried to kill me. I had to wonder if the idea came from him.
Helena says I shouldn’t have to share everything I earned. I worked for it. It’s mine.
The ramblings continued in that vein and then stopped the day before he came to find me in Canada. The last line being:
It ends now.
I shoved the box under the bed again and, suddenly restless, threw on my snow gear and went for a walk. As usual, it led me to the lake and an oddity in the center of it.
A dark spot. As if the ice were melted and the water seeped through.
Weird. Maybe a bunch of fish peed in the same place. Or a gas was released. Maybe an alien craft crashed.
Which was to say it could be anything. I wasn’t a biologist or whatever. I was sure I could find a hundred professionals if I posted the question on social media.
Whatever the reason for the hole, I chalked it up to my lake being special. I knelt and placed my hand on the ice. The snow had been swept clean in some spots. I could have sworn I felt a faint hum.
The hair on my neck prickled as if I were being watched.
I stood and turned, eyeing the strip of forest between me and the cottage. The shoreline was empty. Nothing moved, and yet the sense of not being alone persisted.
I stared until the cold bit through my clothes before heading back to the house.
“She knows you’re watching.” His lover spoke as if he cared to hear her words. She’d failed in her attempt at controlling the source and now thought to cater favor with Leviathan, the chosen one.
The raven he possessed was perched at the very top of a tree and struggling. It didn’t want to be there. The protections on the land made it itch to move away.
He knew the feeling. Each time Leviathan visited, he just wanted to leave. It hurt to be that close. It disgusted him to have to pretend with her.
“She might know, but she can’t stop anything. Not now. Not this close.” He’d finally gotten things where they needed to be.
“You should have bedded her by now. Cemented your position.”
“There have been complications.”
“There’s a pill for that, you know.” She mocked, and he retaliated by grabbing her by the hair. Dragging her close.
“Do I need