Page 91 of The Spider & the Storm

My entire life, that was all I’d ever wanted—to just be left alone to live my quiet life in peace.

That was what all those misunderstood, prosecuted people had wanted then too. To be left to live in the way they saw fit without judgment or mistreatment. I had felt that kinship ever since I’d read that book, and when it was time for me to leave Connecticut, Salem was the only place I’d thought to go. To a place that now honored those who were different, those who were misjudged, and those who simply wanted to be left the fuck alone.

Then, Stormy had walked into my life.

I hadn’t wanted her to; I’d never asked. But she had. And five days ago, she’d said she’d come back to annoy me, yet there’d been no sign of her since I had left her hotel room.

To be honest, her absence was annoying me more than her presence ever had.

What was annoying me more was that it was now Halloween, and I hated Halloween. I hated the memories it stirred, the panic and anxiety it instilled, and I hated it in Salem.

I'd always thought it was the influx of tourism, the increase of groups traipsing their way through my cemetery to ogle at the graves of people long since passed. And, hell, maybe that was still part of it. I didn't love that the souls of the wrongfully condemned had somehow turned into a spectacle in death when all they'd wanted was solace in life.

It angered me more today than ever as I cleared a crumpled fast-food bag from the tucked-away grave of Annabel. The woman had been rumored to be a legitimate, magick-wielding witch who'd escaped execution, helped by her law-breaking lover, Thaddeus. And now, all these years later, this was the respect she was given. Greasy garbage and a muddied cup of soda, emptying at the base of her flat, simple stone.

“Fucking assholes,” I muttered to myself and Annabel's ghost, piercing the grease-coated paper sack with the long-armed trash picker and stuffing it into the bag in my other hand.

Disrespect angered me.Peopleangered me, and that was exactly what infuriated me so much about knowing I was also soul-crushinglylonely. That hollow, aching feeling I hadn’t been able to shake for weeks was now amplified tenfold since the night of Blake’s party.

My mind, flooding with images of Stormy in that dress. My lips, wanting to relive the memory of kissing her. My fingertips, craving to skate along her paper-smooth skin one more time. My body, pleading for the chance to be pressed against hers once again.

But I hadn’t seen her in five days.

She probably realized what a fucking psycho loser I am and decided to find someone else to annoy.

I walked along the path with my picker and garbage bag, turning my head to look in the direction of her hotel. Was she there now? It was unlikely. The sun was still shining, and although I didn’t know her work schedule or what she did when she wasn’t working at all, it seemed too early to be sitting in a hotel room, hunkering down for the night.

Unless someone else is with her.

I approached the truck, sitting idle on the cemetery’s one-lane road near the cottage, and threw the trash bag and picker into the bed before climbing in the cab. I gripped the steering wheel in tightly clenched fists and stared ahead at the dashboard, working my jaw from side to side as I plunged deep into a black abyss of intrusive, terrible thoughts.

I should’ve gotten her number. I should’ve given her mine.

But what if she didn’t even want it? Wouldn’t she have asked if she did?

She doesn’t like me. Her friends saw through me and talked some sense into her. They told her to stay the fuck away.

God, what if they googled my name?!

The secrets I’d been holding tightly, locked safe in the crevices of my brain, were just an internet search away. And while, no, I didn’t think Stormy had my last name, it would’ve been easy enough to find it out.

What if she knows?

What if she’s scared?

Could I blame her?

I looked up from the ink embedded in my flesh to stare out the windshield, my brow furrowing as I tried to muster whatever was left of my confidence and bravery.

Maybe I should go down to the tattoo shop and see if she's there.

Right, yeah. Excellent idea. Freak her out even more. Maybe she’ll slap a restraining order on my ass.

I clapped a hand over my eyes and groaned loudly. Fucking hell, it had been years since my anxieties had screamed this loudly, and they bled out now in tremors and a fresh sheen of sweat coating my skin.

I tipped my head back against the seat and curled my bottom lip between my teeth as I begged my mind to give it a rest. If she showed up, she showed up. My life wasn’t affected either way. And to never see her again would be for the better,right? I could go back to the way things were. This loneliness would eventually fade like everything else in life, and things would be fine. Hell, maybe they'd even be good.

But…

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