Page 59 of Ever Dark

Without meaning to, I drive toward Harker Mansion. I should keep going and head to Draven’s instead.I should keep going.

Fuck. Fuck it.

I pull up to her gates and kill the engine. She’s the only one I want to see right now. The only one who can comfort me without even knowing that’s what I need. I want to bury myself inside her and forget about everything else.

The thrill of being so close to her, the anticipation, is already making me feel better. My adrenaline spikes as I gaze down her driveway. She’s not going to turn me away. This I know for sure. Mia might act like she hates me but it’s quite the opposite. I see the fire in her eyes when I’m touching her.

I’m her release as much as she is mine. My lust for her hasturned into full blown obsession. She’s all I think and dream about. The only one I crave. And it’s her who quiets the demons in my head. With her, I’m fully present.

As I stalk toward the front door, I see a light flickering in the window up above. The sweet pungent scent of cedar smoke escapes from the chimney. It creates a stir of butterflies in my belly. Mia is mine tonight. And I’m going to fuck her until she’s raw and whimpering.

MIA

The whiskey burns my throat. I take another fiery sip and glare at the blank canvas in front of me. I haven’t been able to paint since I got here. Every time I try, my body tenses, my heart races, and I can’t keep my hand steady enough to hold a paintbrush. My creativity is stifled. And it’s all their fault.

I turn my attention to my finished paintings instead, admiring them and fearing them at the same time. The thick swirls of black and purple paint are ominous—foreboding. And then there’s the red eyes I’ve painted on each one. Nox’s eyes. They haunt me. On some, they are small and distant, like when he used to watch me from afar. When I was a child, I’d wake up in a dark tunnel. He hid in the shadows then.

But every year I got closer to becoming a woman, he inched closer until he was so close I could feel his breath on my face. I painted that tunnel over and over again. But then I turned eighteen and woke up in another room. The one I still wake up in now. I painted that one too. And his red eyes got bigger in those paintings.

The room is as dark as the tunnel but with a bed in the center. It’s his stage and his prison. And mine. The unspeakable things I’ve let him do to me there…

I shudder and throw the paintbrush at the canvas. It leaves a splotch of black paint on the easel before it falls to the floor. “Fuck,” I rasp. I down the rest of my whiskey on my way out.

I’ll try again tomorrow.

On my way to the library, I snatch another bottle of whiskey from the cabinet in the foyer. After Aries showed me where the cellar was, I took a handful of bottles to keep up here on the main floor. The cellar is dimly lit and it gives me the creeps. Not to mention how easy it was for Bones to slip in.

The library is almost a mile away from the kitchen, so I make sure to stop there first to grab a snack. This house is so fucking big there are still some rooms and hallways I haven’t explored yet. Certain ones give me goosebumps when I pass them. But the longer I’m here, the more I’m settling in, and the less I fear the unknown. It’s like the house is finally remembering me, night after night.

The library lights flicker a few times when I flip the switch. Old wiring. If Draven hadn’t forbidden every electrician in Ever Graves from working for me, I’d call someone out to take a look at it.

Fucking Draven. Ugh.

I light a fire in the stone hearth before curling up on the overstuffed leather couch in front of it. I pour another glass of whiskey before picking up the copy ofGrimm’s FairytalesI’d left on the side table. Maybe reading about fictional monsters will distract me from the real ones who stalk me.

I forget time as I read, losing myself in the pages. I sip my whiskey and munch on mini ham and cheese sandwiches, content for the first time in a while. All of this grandeur is nice, but it’s these simple comforts that ease my anxiety. It reminds me of the nights I’d scrounged up enough change to get a hot cup of tomato soup and grilled cheese at the diner in Raven’s Gate. When I was on the streets,sometimes people would pay a few dollars for one of my paintings. It fed me and kept me warm for half the night. The server would keep refilling my coffee so the owner wouldn’t think I was loitering.

I breathe in a deep sigh. Now I have more money than I know what to do with, and I’m still searching for something or someone to make me feel whole. I may never find it. But I do know that I want to help others like me. Maybe Ishouldsell to Draven and move back to Raven’s Gate. I could buy the diner and turn it into a soup kitchen for the unhoused.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that it takes me a few minutes to realize I’m not alone. I draw in a sharp breath as the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. My eyes dart around the room, searching for something I can use as a weapon. I notice the fire poker first. Can I reach it before they reach me? Fuck.

I throw the blanket off and bounce off the couch. As I scramble toward the poker, I’m shoved hard. My feet twist underneath me, and I topple to the floor. I hit my back hard against it, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“You barricaded the back door to the wine cellar? Come on, little lamb. Where’s the fun in that?” Bones towers over me, his knuckles bloody.

I fight to catch my breath as my adrenaline races, threatening to give me a heart attack. “What… the… fuck?”

He grabs my wrists and pulls me to my feet with a smirk. “To be fair, I actually knocked this time. You should install one of those doorbells that you can hear from any room.”

Now he’s being polite? I’m getting whiplash from these boys’ mood swings. I lean back against the arm of the couch. “So because I didn’t answer, you broke in. Again. You know that’s not normal, right?”

He shrugs. “You didn’t answer your phone either.”

“It’s still not an excuse, Bones. What the fuck do you want?” I’m pissed that he’s interrupted my quiet, but more pissed about thetingling between my thighs. It’s like the three of them have mind control over my pussy.

He runs a hand over his shaved head and looks at me like I’m a glass of water in the desert. “We need to talk about this property. I, for one, am fucking sick of it, but Draven and Aries will not let it go. So what can I say or do to convince you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. You’re bleeding by the way.” I watch as blood seeps through the gauze around his knuckles.

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