Page 4 of Unholy Nights

For tonight, I’ll allow her the space she wants, though my gaze lingers on her. "Goodnight, little one."

She turns and walks away, her footsteps soft against the floor, and I watch her go, my satisfaction growing. She thinks she’s creating distance, but I won’t allow it. The illusion, maybe. For now.

My pulse speeds up, that familiar hunger gnawing at the edges of my control as I watch her climb the stairs, her untouched little body just waiting for me to own it.

It’s been more than a year of this torture and I’m not sure how much more I can take.

She’s close. So close.

And soon, she’ll be mine.

As the door to her bedroom clicks shut, I head toward my own room, a slow ghost of a smile on my face.

This will be the Christmas everything changes.

This Christmas I give her everything… by taking it all away.

And I can’t fucking wait.

I’ve always wonderedwhat it would feel like to suffocate, and now I know.

It feels a lot like waking up in this house.

Morbid? Maybe. But there’s something sort of beautiful about the idea of taking your last breath and slipping away from this world.

It’s got to be better than this.

Through my window, the Delacroix chapel's dark spire stands tall even through the trees and snow. Most mansions in Emerald Hills come with the typical extras—pool houses, tennis courts, guest cottages. But our estate has something different: a Gothic chapel that's stood here longer than the main house. I think it’s from the 1800s or something, but I don’t really know. My mother refuses to talk about it.

I’ve always been drawn to it, though. I don’t know what it is, but looking at it makes me feel… hopeful, I guess. Through my window, I love staring at its stained-glass windows, trying to pick out the different colors. They’re dull in the gray, at least until the sun hits them just right.

But this morning there’s no sun. Just an endless blanket of heavy gray.

The chapel’s been locked my entire life, and my mother won't go anywhere near it. She’s probably afraid she'll burst into flames if she steps foot on holy ground. I snort, letting myself picture it. I'm pretty sure Satan himself sends her a holiday card since, you know, they’re besties.

Outside, the snow covers everything. More must have fallen while I was sleeping. It’s thick and fluffy without so much as a footprint, like someone’s thrown a down comforter over the whole world. It’s hushed, almost peaceful. But this place isn’t peaceful at all. The house is no doubt buzzing with staff, getting everything ready for another day of perfection, and all I can think about is how badly I just want to disappear.

My bones are heavy. I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet and already I want to crawl back into it, yank the blanket over my head, and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist. I don’t know how I’m going to drag myself through another day of my life.

I glance at the clock on my nightstand.7:30 a.m.My mother’s bitchy robotic assistant, Kendra, will be knocking on my door any minute now with my outfit for the day. Something boring and expensive and handpicked by my mother. There will be no room for personality. No room for self expression.

No room for me.

Yay.Another day of my life wasted, spent being Madeline Delacroix’s daughter. I’m her favorite accessory. I might as well be a tiny dog in a handbag on my mother’s arm.

I stare at the ceiling with its hand-carved crown molding while I try to breathe out my claustrophobia. It’s not a small space I'm trapped by, though. It’s my whole life.

At that panic-inducing thought, my breathing gets shallow and fast, like I’m trying to breathe through a straw. I swear my ribs are squeezing my lungs, and every inhale’s a battle I’m not sure I want to keep fighting. Knowing what’s coming today, all the mindless tasks my mother’s going to heap on me and the wayI’ll be expected to wear a mask at all times wraps ghost fingers around my throat and starts to choke the life out of me.

There’s this sense of inevitability that hits me every morning, but today for some reason it’s worse. Maybe it’s the few minutes of attention I got last night from my stepfather that made me feel like an actual human being. Cohen’s attention last night was like... like when you’re freezing cold and someone wraps you in a blanket straight from the dryer. That’s what his words felt like—warm and safe and comfortable.

Maybe it’s the added pressure of the holidays.

I don’t really know. But it doesn’t matter how I’m feeling, I’m still expected to play my part. I can already hear the faint sounds of the house waking up, my mother’s staff scurrying around, doing her bidding.

What Cohen said is still bouncing around in my head. The words are impossible to ignore, especially because they’re exactly what I’ve always wanted to hear.

You won’t be trapped anymore. One day, you’ll be free.

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