Page 63 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

I had to get away.

Quietly.

I turned around, as slowly as possible—terrified she’d hear me. Don’t creak, don’t creak, don’t creak. The aged wood of our old-ass apartment was bound to turn against me, and I had no way to stop it. This was some James-Bond-level shit, and I was not mentally prepared to become a master spy today, but here we were.

The first step toward my room went smoothly.

The second step went just as well as the first.

Great.

Now just twenty more.

I could do this.

Violet had started talking again but I blocked her out. There was nothing she could say at this point that would dissuade me. She didn’t understand that I was willing to take the risks. All of them. I wasn’t going into this blind. I knew what was at stake.

In fact, even Prudence had no idea that I knew what this might mean for me. He was hiding that information. For whatever reason. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t help him if I knew. Maybe because the curse was so old, and so obscure, he genuinely didn’t understand the risks himself.

Somehow I doubted it was the latter.

I wasn’t afraid, not if helping Prudence meant avoiding the misery I was about to inflict on my family. If all went well, they’d never even know what had happened. Water under the bridge. If I didn’t do this, my future was a bleak one. I couldn’t live with the guilt I was currently feeling. Every day I woke up sicker than the last. It colored everything I did black, black, black till I fell into a void made of pain I had yet to inflict.

Caught in my own web.

I’d do anything if it meant I got to be sunshine Luca again. The big brother. The son. The man my family could rely on, rain or shine. Besides, there was no guarantee I’d die anyway. Violet herself had said that. It was all maybes and mights, what ifs and could bes.

I was willing to take that chance.

I managed to get back to my room in one piece and the moment I stepped across the threshold, Prudence paused, hands caught rifling through my underwear drawer. I blinked, unsure what the fuck to do with what I was witnessing. My morose thoughts were momentarily derailed, as I cocked my head, and he continued to flip through my most private shit, uncaring of his audience.

The door shut with a click behind me.

“What?” Prudence’s scratchy voice made my insides do the salsa. Fingering a pair of neon green briefs, his hooded eyes dared me to say something, eyebrow arching in challenge. I had…so much to unpack in that moment. So many questions. Like, why are you going through my underwear drawer? What do you think you’re going to find? And also: Did you find my old jock straps? Because I haven’t seen them in months. And most importantly: Don’t you fucking dare judge me for all the patterns. I like what I like, douchebag.

Maybe, he thought there was more money. After he’d robbed the ATM he’d left a whole pile of it in there, after all. Or…maybe he was simply being a nosy fucker. Again.

Was accosting my paint supplies not enough for him?

He just had to know every single little detail of my life.

Ugh, why did that make me want to laugh? It should be creepy. Probably. Not endearing. Nosy ghost.

Reaching down, I grabbed a wayward rolled up sock-ball from the floor by my feet, and chucked it at him in retaliation. It went right through his head, and he growled at me. Actually, fucking growled.

“Why are you—” I shook my head. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”

Prudence continued to stare at me, though his lips did a downward twist thing I didn’t know how to describe. It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t left the room now that Violet was back. Was he worried Violet would hurt him? No. That seemed unlikely. I doubted Prudence was scared of anything.

Or maybe…maybe he wasn’t as comfortable around other people as he was with me.

A little smile flickered across my lips and I shook my head.

Then…everything came back to me in a rush and I locked the door behind me with a quiet snick before I crossed the room toward him and leaned close enough there was no chance Violet could overhear me.

There were scant inches between us.

I could feel the buzz of energy from Prudence’s body as he shifted almost imperceptibly toward me, his eyebrow quirking, his hands stilling their snooping. “What?” He asked again, this time softer.

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