Page 135 of Deliver us from Evil

Who it is.

It had been lying on the mattress in that pitch-black basement. Already dead. That’s what I’d been smelling. A girl with short hair, or a boy with long hair.

Dead.

Alone.

There in the dark.

Keith’s tongue finds what it was looking for.

The panting thing claws my face, tearing out my gag.

A slick tongue forces its way deep into the hole in my chest, going all the way through to my back.

The pain is excruciating.

A scream tears apart my throat.

Cold, dead little fingers creep over my face and try to seal my lips.

“Ssh, Trinity,” the child murmurs in my ear. “Don’t let the bad man hear you.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Trinity

My body jerks violently. I clap a hand over my chest, grimacing as I sit up in bed.

I dislodge two arms on the way. Apollo mumbles something under his breath as he turns and goes straight back to sleep.

Cass looks like he’s still sleeping.

I shimmy out of bed as carefully as I can, and hurry out of the room. I pad down the stairs, take a left, and sprint into the nearest bathroom.

If the basin had been another foot away, I’d have missed it. I retch violently, repetitively, my eyes streaming with pain.

I shudder as I rinse out the sink, then my mouth.

Again.

That’s the eighth night in a row.

I gargle half the bottle of mouth wash and stand at the foot of the stairs, staring into the dark.

But I don’t want to go back to sleep. Not if that fucking thing is waiting to pounce on me as soon as I close my eyes.

I head downstairs and let myself out onto the patio.

The ocean sounds calm tonight. The crash and sigh of the waves are barely audible from where I’m standing.

I flinch when hands wrap around my upper arms.

“Same one?” Cass asks.

I had woken him.

“Yeah.” I swipe my hair out of my face, put a hand over my chest. “It hurts more every time.”

---