Page 152 of The Spider & the Storm

An awkward laugh pushed past my lips. “Apparently, everyone remembers this but me.” But that wasn't true either, was it? Because while I definitely didn't remember Noah or Ray, Ididremember seeing this man. Yet my attempts to place him at the scene itself were feeble.Why is that?

“Huh.” That clueless look on Soldier's face remained, even as he nodded slowly. “Yeah. That might be it. I kinda remember something like that.”

“He's the guy with the spiderweb tattoos,” Noah pointed out, gesturing toward my hands.

Soldier looked down to assess them himself, and then his brows lifted with the sudden hit of memory. “That's right. She called you The Spider. God, that was, like, the beginning of last month, and here you are now, about to have dinner with us. That's crazy.”

It really was wild. How quickly things could change. Of course, I'd been no stranger to that life truth; I'd been aware of how suddenly the entire world could be flipped upside down from a very young age. But never had things changed so quickly for the better. That part was new, and I wasn't so sure I'd ever get used to it. Somewhere in my mind, I was still navigating this chapter of life with caution, not wanting to be too surprised when the next dose of trauma came to bite me in the ass.

“Things moved pretty quickly,” I replied for the sake of saying something and offered a sheepish smile while my brain raced through every possible scenario in which everything could blow up in my face.

“So it would seem.” Soldier smiled, but it seemed forced, as if, like me, he still couldn’t make sense of it. Like somewhere, a piece of the puzzle was still floating around, left unchecked, and nothing would feel right until it was put in its place.

***

The feeling lingered into the evening. Even as we all sat around the table, eating one of the best Thanksgiving feasts I'd ever had, I would glance across the table to watch Stormy's brother-in-law. His mannerisms. How he talked to Stormy's parents. What he looked like when he smiled or frowned or was deep in conversation. I hadn't intended to stare so intently at times, but there was a voice inside my head, screaming at me toremember, remember, remember, and what the fuck I was supposed to be remembering, I didn't know. But I hoped that, if I just watched him enough, if I listened enough, it would eventually come to me.

“So, Charlie,” Chris said, deciding to drag me into a conversation for the first time all night. His attention had been fixated so much on his youngest grandson, and I couldn't say I blamed him. Miles adored him, and from the looks of it, the feeling was mutual. “Stormy told us earlier that youlivein the cemetery?”

He asked the question as if it were the most asinine thing he'd ever heard.

I couldn't help but chuckle.

“Yeah, I do. I've lived there for the past five years.”

Noah gave me a genuine smile for the first time. “Awesome.”

“What's that like?” Chris buttered a biscuit as he shrugged. “Do you … do you have a house there? Or do you—”

“Do you sleep in one of those houses they bury bodies in?” Noah blurted out, his face beaming with boyish intrigue.

I chuckled again. “A mausoleum, and, no, they don't usually let us camp out in those.”

Noah's grin broadened, his eyes gleaming with devilish delight. “Usuallyis the key word there, right?”

It felt good to joke with him. It felt good to make him smile. But I turned to Chris and informed him that, yes, I had a house, not wanting him to believe his daughter was shacking up with some weirdo who pitched tents between the headstones.

“You're not scared?” Chris asked.

I shook my head. “There's nothing to be scared of.” Which was only half of the truth. I'd believed for a long time that there was nothing to fear, but that wasbefore. Before the trinkets were left. Before the intruder. Before the scent of cigarettes lingered where there'd been none. Before I was haunted by the man who hunted me.

“What about ghosts?” Barbara asked, her face contorting like she'd just seen one.

“They're there,” I answered casually, truthfully. “But they don't bother me.”Well, not until recently anyway.

“It's not so bad,” Stormy jumped in, hooking her hand around the inside of my elbow. Coming to my defense, as I'd come to hers. “You get used to it. And actually, it's really nice. Like being so close to the city but also being far away from the noise and the people. Plus, the neighbors aresuperquiet.”

Her hand tightened on my arm, and I couldn't contain my smile.

Barbara shivered, and I half expected her to say something, the way she'd made a snide remark about Stormy's job last night. But she kept it to herself and instead asked the last thing I could've possibly wanted to talk about.

“I know your parents are no longer with us, but do you have any other family? Any siblings?”

Soldier's eyes diverted from the food on his plate to look at me, and I thought I might've seen something shift in his gaze.

I pulled in an unsteady breath. Stormy squeezed my arm tighter now, keeping me grounded in the moment. This wasn't a topic I wanted to discuss despite how innocent of a question it was. Most people might say that, yes, they had a brother, but I could guarantee very few of them would then follow it up by saying said brother was spending his Thanksgiving in prison because he’d murdered his childhood best friend. And I could lie, but a quick Google search would prove that to be bullshit, and then what? Sure, I could easily explain that my reason for lying was to save me from judgment and humiliation, but to what end?

So, I kept my eyes on my plate and replied, “I have a brother, yeah.” My voice sounded like it'd been raked across a cheese grater.

---