Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Sagan

I’ve made a mess in Esme’s perfect hands.

I go to the bathroom to clean up and grab a hot towel for Esme.

She eyes me curiously.

“Sex towel,” I say. “You know, for your hands, and other stuff.”

She takes it and says, “That’s so nice of you.”

“Bare minimum for any dude to get his partner a sex towel.”

“Now you’ll end up asleep before me,” she teases as I slide back into bed with her.

“Talk to me and keep me awake, then,” I say.

“Okay,” Esme says. “Let me tell you everything about the day I met this nice guy named Sagan.”

This definitely isn’t going to keep me awake, but I love hearing her talk.

She weaves in and out of the whole timeline of events from that day over a year ago.

At the bonfire, I’d found her warming her hands next to the flames. Her face glowed in the dancing light like a goddess of mischief, her layered, sandy hair turning coppery red in the firelight. I might have believed she was a mirage if I hadn’t done what I did next.

Feeling bold under her spell, I sidled up next to her.

She turned to me and smiled with cracked red lips. It was cold and windy that day.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew my chapstick, offering it to her wordlessly.

She took it without hesitation. “Thanks,” she said, batting her inky lashes as she smoothed the balm over her lips.

“I hope you don’t accept drinks from strangers as easily as you accept their chapstick.”

She countered, “Like this one?” Esme reached down and picked up a can of unopened Busch Light from the ground. I remember thinking how wildly incongruous that was. Esme should be sipping expensive wine at a fine restaurant in New York City, not chugging cheap beer at a bonfire in podunk Kentucky.

I knew nothing about her except the way she carried herself. The worldliness in her eyes.

She handed the chapstick back to me.

“Keep it,” I said.

Then she held out the can of Busch with a curious arched brow.

I shook my head and said, “No, ma’am. I’m sober.”

Esme snatched the can backward as if she had accidentally burned me with it. “I’m so sorry.”

“No worries. It is a party and I was dumb enough to come.”

She lifted one pretty eyebrow. “Not any dumber than me. Someone handed me this, and I can’t even drink it because of my medication.”

“Guess we’re both dummies, then,” I said, which made her chuckle, a sound that warmed every cold, empty place in my body.

“But I’m just smart enough to talk to the coolest person here.”

Esme rolled her blue eyes and laughed. “Correction. I’m a huge nerd.”

“Doubt it.”

“I am. I have no social life. When I’m not making decisions about how to fix my house, I spend all day with doctors and therapists who try to make decisions about how to fix me. Nothing works.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you that I can see,” I said.

Her pretty lashes fluttered. She looked away shyly and handed off the beer can to someone passing by. She rubbed her hands together, and all I wanted to do was cover them with mine, or hold her hand in my coat pocket, the way a boyfriend does. I still remember the yearning.

“Sometimes I just…shut down. It’s like…my brain says nope. And I lie down and do nothing.”

“If you need help with the house, maybe I could take a look. I’m not in construction anymore, but I’m handy. I also know people…”

I was trying too hard. Pushing too hard.

Esme shook her head. “Trust me, you don’t want to take a look at my house.”

I let it go.

Later that night, we stole Briar’s car and drove to the tattoo parlor, where I tattooed the little cardinal on her wrist.

As I was working on her, she asked, “What does Stay Down mean?”

I get comments on my knuckle tats all the time. But never that question. Most people who come into Faded Ink already know things about me, or they assume they know just by looking at me.

But Esme’s question makes me pause my work on her wrist. Her liquid blue eyes are wide and curious. She’s brilliant; I can see that. But there’s something strangely sheltered about this girl. I can’t put my finger on what it is about her. She’s sheltered but untethered at the same time.

“It means if some asshole sees my fist flying at their face and they go down, they better stay there.”

“Were you a professional fighter at one time, or…?”

“I got that after I left the Army,” I say. The word “Left” is carrying a lot of baggage, which makes me feel like a real asshole.

“Oh?”

Just like I thought, there’s no hiding or omitting anything with Esme.

“It’s a cover-up tattoo,” I say.

“The same words were tattooed on my fingers while I was at La Grange. I just made it look better.”

She blinked.

I’ll let her google what that means later. The Kentucky State Reformatory.

“If I’m scaring you, we can stop right now and you can go.”

She laughed. “Go? With a half-done tattoo? No thanks.”

“Got any more questions about me?”

“None of my business, but you’re free to tell me why you have a fighting tattoo on your knuckles.”

“I used to have a problem with my temper,” is what I said. “But I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“Life.”

“What’s your secret? Because my life could use some figuring out.”

The conversation flowed after that, primarily about book recommendations. Esme reads a disturbing amount of horror and true crime, but I’m not here to judge. I gave her several books to check out. Thich Nhat Hanh. Dogen. Satouchi Jakucho.

“We would make the weirdest book club ever, Sagan.”

That was the first time Esme said my name.

I finished inking her little cardinal all too soon.

Esme didn’t flinch under the needle, not once. Then, Briar found her, collected her, and they went home.

That was the last time I saw Esme. Until today.

Rowan warned me to stay away when I asked him about her. I knew his girl Briar and Esme were friends. He ended up spilling the beans on Esme’s identity. Not that I gave a shit that she was an heiress of massive proportions.

But he said she was in a place where she could date anyone, and made me promise to stay away until she felt better.

I never should have listened.

And I’m never letting Esme out of my sight again.

She sleeps soundly, and I watch over her for some time. Maybe an hour.

When I feel she’s settled, sleep finally washes over me. I fall asleep with one hand on her hip.

It could be minutes later, or it could be hours later when Esme startles me awake with her screaming.

If I can even call it that.

The sound she makes causes every hair on my body to stand straight up.

I would be more adept at handling a true horror movie scream. A belting, blood-curdling wail.

This is not that. Instead, her eyes are open, her jaw is clenched, and she’s fighting something off in a state of half-asleep, half-awake.

“Sweetheart,” I say, getting in her face.

She gasps, and then her voice is a childlike whimper. “They were here. They were right there,” she says, pointing at the dormant fireplace.

I sit up and listen while keeping one hand on her. She gratefully clings to my arm.

There’s definitely something in the chimney.

At first, I think it’s nothing but a bird, or possibly a squirrel. Could even be bats roosting in there if she hasn’t used the chimney in a while.

But then I hear it. Mumbled words. A very familiar cadence, like poetry.

Human words.

My blood runs cold when my ears hit on actual words.

“Dead.”

“Walk.”

“Mother.”

“Waking.”

Shit, shit, shit.

I don’t believe in ghosts but I believe Esme does, and I believe some truly terrible shit is going on here.

“That’s it. We’re leaving.”

“You hear it?” Esme cries, gripping my arm.

“Yep. Get your shit. We’re out of here.”

There’s a pause in the noise while Esme cowers in her bed. I take this opportunity to grab some clothes and bathroom shit, then manage to find a duffel bag inside a trunk at the back of the closet.

The whispers begin again, this time growing to raspy growls and I still can’t make out complete sentences. The same cadence as before.

“Night.”

“Unruly.”

“Chimneys.”

It’s Shakespeare. I don’t know how I know but I just do.

Never mind that.

I block it all out and hurry the hell up.