Page 50 of Ethereally Redeemed

“Are you ready?” Grey asks quietly, helping me off the bus.

The station sits by an abandoned road, flanked by dense forest on both sides. We’re the only ones who got off here, in the middle of nowhere, and yet I can’t shake the feeling of instantly being watched. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth, worry spilling into my soul.

“No. Are you?”

The bus’s engine starts with a loud hum, its sound fading off into the distance as it drives away. No one inside pays us any mind, yet that creeping sensation of being observed persists, making sweat bead on my forehead. I scan the area, seeing that we’re utterly alone, with no one for miles to see or hear us.

Grey shakes his head. “No, but if it’s something we must do, then we should investigate.”

His eyes roam my body, taking in every inch of my frame—the black sweatshirt draped over my shoulders, the matchingshorts and my bare thighs. As he lingers on my thighs with an appreciative glance, my cheeks flush a deep red color. For a moment, I let myself bask in his attention, feeling less alone and terrified of the uncertainties that lie ahead.

He strides along the road, map in hand that we managed to get from the convenience store across the library. With the research we made, we could nearly pinpoint the exact whereabouts of where Grimhill Manor is supposed to be. He holds my hand harshly in his, never letting go, as he takes me along the abandoned road. It’s a few more miles until we’ll take off into the woods, finding a path through trees and brushes that will take us to the forgotten manor.

Panic seizes my being, tightening my shoulders with each step. My instincts urge me to run as far from here as possible. Grey notices my hesitation and stops, his worried gaze meeting mine as my feet are halted, rooted to the ground.

“I hate this,” I whisper, my voice clogged with emotions that can’t be missed.

“I know, baby,” he whispers back.

Taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he makes me look at him, into those bottomless sapphire eyes that bring me back to the sense of safety.

“I’ll be here every step of the way. You will not be alone. You never have to be alone again,” he says.

He waits a few more minutes, ensuring my breath steadies, before we continue forward—to the past I wish I could forget—before eventually turning into the woods.

They’re as eerie this time of the day as they are at night, the trees whistling in the wind like an impenetrable wall of tangled undergrowth. Grey reads the map with ease, as if he’s done it many times before—no missteps and no mistakes.

For hours, the forest remains unfamiliar, but the longer we walk, the closer we get, and the more an unsettling feeling seepsinto my entire being. I can’t bring myself to utter a word, even though my mind desperately wants to fill the silence. Instead, I trail after Grey, casting nervous glances at the forest around us.

As we venture deeper into the woods, my resolve hardens, taking with it the last remnants of my sanity. The oppressive silence presses on me like a fog trying to stifle a raging fire, and each step makes it harder to continue forward, knowing what horrible memories will await me once I see the manor again.

Trees loom overhead, branches bare and claw-like, reminiscent of spidery fingers reaching out for us. They create a canopy that is so thick it barely allows any light to show the way before us, a mysterious mist clinging to the ground. Every sound nature makes sends my heart into a frenzy, anxiety spiking through me as my grip on Grey’s hand tightens.

His presence is a life vest keeping me afloat from the waves of fear that threaten to sweep me away. And I know I wouldn’t be able to make it without him by my side.

“We should be there soon,” he announces, causing another wave of anxiety to flood through me.

My body screams at me to stop, my mind pleads for me to end this self-inflicted torment. But isn’t that what I need to stay alive? The pain, the horror—the only things reminding me that I made it out alive.

We’ve already been wandering for hours, and doubts linger in my mind that perhaps we got the location all wrong.

“You know, sometimes, I can still hear the screams of the children. As if they have a permanent place carved out in my memory,” I whisper, my voice slightly trembling.

Grey’s just about to reply when the dirt and grass path beneath our feet gives way to a more compact surface. The trees part slightly, allowing a bigger path to take place before us; a gravelly road leading the opposite way from us. As the trees part even more, it gives way to the charred remains of what once wasa building and its broken down façade.

It’s then I recognize it for what it is—the looming reality of Grimhill Manor.

Chapter 18

Naya

Terror roars within me,mirroring the monster that haunts my fragile mind. The skeletal structure of a house stands as a testament to the horrors I endured at the hands of Frederick Grimhill. Forced to be his doll forever, until the day I was taken to Dankworth Institute.

“This…this is where you lived?” Grey asks, voice quivering, as if he can’t believe what he sees right before him.

Nausea makes its way up my throat, threatening to spill as we approach the gate I once escaped through. I nod, my eyes falling upon the road where Everlee’s hand was ripped out of mine, taken away from me only to never be seen again.

She’s seized by a tall and well-built man.

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