Page 27 of Hot Ghoul Summer

MOLLY CAN’T STOP SHAKING, and she’s as pale as I am. I hold her hands as we sit at the kitchen table, and miraculously, she lets me do it. I rub her fingers, trying to get some color and warmth back into her. “It’s okay, love,” I soothe.

Her hollow eyes suddenly focus on me. “Excuse me? What? How is this okay? Did you not hear him? He won’t stop until he finds me. He won’t rest until he’s dead.”

I smile, and maybe I shouldn’t. I know there’s something off in the way I’m looking at her. It’s not my usual kind, gentle face. There’s something dark and angry that I’ve been waiting to unleash for the last four centuries, some fury at the hunters who stalk innocent prey. “I heard him, indeed. Nothing on this earth can stop him. He’ll hunt you until he’s dead.”

Molly’s eyes stare into mine.

“No human can stop him?” I show her the skeletal digits I keep for “special occasions,” my bony fingers wrapping around hers. “Not quite human. Won’t rest until he’s dead?” My smile widens. “I can arrange that.”

And for the first time since I met her... Molly smiles back.

Chapter Eight: Vulnerable

One of the things I learned about in my years of therapy (thanks, Dad AKA Loser One) is that betrayal has its own special groove in your emotions. The feeling of betrayal is so complex. It’s shock, it’s anger, it’s a loss of trust—and then there’s the grief and the loss of safety and confidence.

When my dad left Mom and me when I was a kid, the feeling of betrayal was huge. The self-doubt hit hard. Was I the cause of the divorce? Was it because I wasn’t good enough as a daughter? Would he have stayed if I’d have been smarter, prettier, or just a boy?

I didn’t have any of those issues after Mom kicked Gary Garmin to the curb. I got what I expected out of him—nothing—but that was okay. It was as if he never existed after a while. He didn’t hurt me, I didn’t want him around—he was just gone.

I didn’t think he was a bad person, just a sketchy person, a little bit of a gross, grabby, middle-aged man. A creep in a world full of creeps.

To find out that he actually tried to get me killed—in two different ways—it leaves a hole in my psyche that I can’t figure out how to fill.

Toby’s arms feel good around me as he rocks me and explains again how he’s going to protect me and take care of me, how as long as I’m on this sacred, protected property that ordinary people can’t see unless he allows it, I can’t be hurt.

I don’t want to be a prisoner, but the feeling of being in a safe, undetectable place where I can’t be hurt by someone I used to trust—it’s surprising how comforting that is.

Tomorrow, I’ll be a fighter. Tonight, I’m a vulnerable, huddling mass who won’t leave Toby’s lap. I keep hearing snippets of Theo’s conversation, my body shuddering when I realize how my innocence means nothing to that man. I could beg him to stop, and he wouldn’t. I could tell him it was Gary, all Gary, and I think he’d still punish me to hurt him. For the first time in my life, I feel less than human. I’m a pawn in a dark, messy game where people will get killed.

Death is no stranger to a nurse.

This kind of death just seems so—brutal and evil, so unnatural.

It’s funny that Toby is an example of death, too, but right now he’s so gentle, so reassuring.

My brain hurts.

Toby carries me around as if I weigh nothing, my legs crossed around his hips, his arm around my waist. With his free hand, he fills the electric kettle, measures out tea in a strainer, grabs a cup, and dumps in way too much sugar. In moments, he hands me the cup and carries me to my bedroom.

“I’ll bring you up some dinner. I’ll leave Musketeer to guard you,” Toby murmurs.

My fingers clamp down on his arm. “No! No. Can you... Do you have to go right now?”

I can’t believe how quickly things have changed in my head—although some part of me wonders if this is some kind of Hell or a sick joke, a vision he concocted to force me to stay.

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