Page 84 of Lust

He continues trembling, like he’s having a seizure. Though his eyes are on me, it takes him a minute to recognize me.

“Oh my God,” he mutters as tears well in his eyes. His arms wrap around me, and his shaking intensifies.

“It’s okay, Luke,” I say as I pull out of him. “I’m here. I’m here.”

I hold him close. Cling to him so he knows he’s safe as long as he’s in my arms.

“I saw,” I say. “At least some of it.”

He leans back and looks at me with wide eyes, studying my expression. “What did you see?” He listens as I tell him, then says, “Yeah. It really rattled me seeing those kids screaming and the two bodies again.”

I comfort him some more before texting Cody.

Fortunately, Cody’s fine, and like the first time with Luke, he didn’t share the vision.

We dress and head out to meet the guys at the old church. Even though his shaking has subsided, Luke keeps holding his hands like he’s trying to steady them as he gives Cody and Seth a quick summation of his vision. He glosses over bits, so I fill in gaps and details he may have missed.

“Why is it different from the first vision?” Seth asks.

Cody’s lips twist into a frown. “Something must’ve changed.”

“What if it’s something else Luke did without realizing it?”

“We can’t put this on Luke,” Cody says. “It is interesting there’s no fairgrounds, but then the same two deaths after? Maybe those happen at a different time than we thought?”

“The kids we saw were dressed up,” I say, thinking the detail might help something click into place. “One of the frat’s theme nights. A girl was dressed as a cheerleader, one guy as a football player, and another as a hockey player. We need to talk to someone who lives there and find out when they’re having a sports-themed party.”

Seth closes his eyes. “No need. There’s one this Saturday.”

The blood in my face drains. “What?”

“They sent out reminders about it today.”

“Then we’re just in time,” Luke says, sounding more hopeful than he has since he had the vision.

“In time?” Seth asks. “We’re supposed to figure out what to do about this in two fucking days?” He curses. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with.”

“We do have some information,” Cody says. “It’s a large creature, for one.”

“And now we know when and where,” I add.

“Seth’s not wrong, though,” Luke says, a first from him. “What the hell are we supposed to do about a fucking monster? This thing was like nine feet tall when I saw it torturing that guy. Are we gonna get a gun or something?”

“I’ve already considered all this,” Cody says. “There’s a spell in the Sinners’ bible. We can create a circle that can trap animals or people.”

Luke’s eyebrows tug closer together as he makes a face like when we were first telling him about all this stuff. “And you know this works?”

“We’ve tried it on each other,” I assure him. “When we were first playing around with the book. It works. We don’t know that it’ll work on something from the Rift, but it’s not that far-fetched.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Cody says.

Luke glances between the three of us, like he’s waiting for someone to point out that this is a horrible idea. “And what are we supposed to do with it once we have it trapped? Is Cody gonna tell it its future? Is Seth gonna push it to kill itself? Is Brad gonna fuck it to death? Am I gonna fuck Brad and lift it off the ground?” He huffs, rolling his eyes and turning away from us.

Everyone’s quiet for a moment before Cody says, “As far as killing the thing, you guys know what we can do.”

He looks at me like it should be obvious, and I turn to Seth, who seems just as thrown.

Cody motions to the stack of bricks in the corner of the room, and it fucking hits me.

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