Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ghost

She’s completely unresponsive, effectively sexed into a coma. I mentally pat myself on the back as I sit here, unmasked, trailing my fingers through her damp hair. I ran her a warm bubble bath and made her something to eat to replenish her mind and body from our vigorous night. I probably shouldn’t have made love to her after fucking her brains out, but I was overcome with emotion. I needed her to feel what I was feeling, when her walls were down and all the fight had left her body. I saw the glaze of tears in her eyes while she clung to me as the most draining orgasm she’s probably ever had wracked her body. Her release pulling my own from within me. I would stay buried inside her forever if I could. She feels for me the same as I feel for her. I can tell. It’s scaring the absolute shit out of her. I’ll help her through it, get her to admit it. Not just to me but to herself as well.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, it’s Carla. Fucking Johnson has swapped shifts with Myers and I’m stuck on nightshift highway patrol for another five days. Well, at least I don’t have to rush back home to be ready for work in a few hours now.

I slip my mask back on and rise from the bed. Mallory shifts and starts to pat around the bed. Looking for me even in her sleep, a warmth blooms in my chest. She bolts up with the speed of a bullet leaving a gun, searching for me.

“Looking for me?” I tease. Her eyes shoot to mine and narrow.

“Were you watching me sleep?”

“Maybe… Why so frantic, little siren?” I quietly say, bracing my arms on the mattress and leaning down.

“I thought you left,” she whispers.

“Awe, do you want me to stay, baby?”

“Yes, please stay.” Her eyes are swirling pools of honey, dripping with fear of abandonment. I can’t deny her, I won’t.

“Okay, but only for a bit longer,” I say as she blushes, pulling me back into the bed with her.

I lean back against the headboard with her head in my lap coaxing her back to sleep. The steady rise and fall of her body calms me in a way I’ve never experienced before. The rhythmic sound of her breathing pulling me into a semiconscious state of contentment.

∞∞∞

That’s where I wake up a few hours later. Fuck. What time is it? 3:26 am. Double fuck. I need to go. I’ll come back later and set up the cameras while she’s at work. I worm my way out from under her and search around for her phone. I can’t find it. Nudging her awake, “Hey, where’s your phone?”

“Shed,” she mumbles. That sly little fox, no wonder I couldn’t see it lighting up during our chase.

“Go back to sleep, you have to work in a few hours.”

“Mhmmm,” is the only reply I get as she snuggles into the blankets.

The saturated ground squelches beneath my boots as I make my way across the lawn. Unease prickles the back of my neck and my steps slow to a stop. I strain my ears to listen for any unnatural sound but nothing comes. Through the months and months of observing Mallory, I encountered this feeling a handful of times. I often found myself wondering if her house was haunted. I honestly don’t believe in any of that supernatural stuff but the thought is always lingering in the back of my mind.

Eric Pederson was a loving husband and father of three by all accounts. Whatever overcame him at the family gathering that night, we will never know. What I do know from reading the police report is that he systematically took out his entire family, both his parents, his wife’s parents, and her sister. They were all here visiting the family over a long weekend in May.

He drowned his kids one by one in the tub, redressed them in their pyjamas, and tucked them into bed. Then made his way downstairs where he found Karen, his wife, in the kitchen preparing after dinner tea for everyone. There was a struggle and Karen appeared to have been deliberately burned with the hot water from the kettle. While in unimaginable pain already, she was then stabbed thirteen times. In more superficial areas, causing her to bleed out slowly while her skin was on fire from the tortuous burning of her flesh inflicted by her husband. The four bodies of all the parents were found in the basement. It seems as though Karen’s father encountered Eric on the stairs and was shot in the chest at close range with a shotgun. Karen’s mom was found deceased in the downstairs bathroom and both of Eric’s parents were taken out where they sat in the lounge area of the basement. Police believe that Mary, Karen’s sister, witnessed part of the attack and fled outside. Drag marks were found leading back into the house and there was gravel embedded in Mary’s knees. She had numerous defence wounds on her hands and arms. She fought like hell before Eric tied her to his bed and ruthlessly abused her long into the night. He then slit her throat before leaving for work at the Henderson Mill bright and early the next morning.

There he worked his full ten hour shift like he hadn’t just committed mass murder. Then, he pulled a six shooter from his pants and shot the few men he worked with that day. Four men succumbed to their injuries but the other two survived. Eric fled the scene and the Crystal Creek Police Department was notified of the incident. The police found Eric hanging from the ceiling in the basement of the house. The coward had ended his own life.

Mary had a son she left with a babysitter that night, that kid was Dennis’s father. Going off what the rumour mill in this town says, the child lived with his father after that. He was apparently a real piece of shit. So, the abuse flowed down the family line, ending up deeply rooted in Dennis, who abused and manipulated everyone around him in any way he could.

I search my soul for the guilt and remorse I should feel for having taken his life, as well as the lives of others. But there’s nothing remotely close to those feelings, just pride. I protected Mallory from any further abuse or pain, and likely even death. She deserves to live, to feel and experience life, the highs as well as the lows. I will give her anything under the sun to make her happy.

I pull out my phone and call her as the door to the shed swings open, banging against the siding in the wind. The screen of her cell lights up the dark interior of the shed and I see it sitting next to the open window at the back. It’s lying in a puddle of water and I’m surprised it’s still working. I grab it, and shut it off before the moisture ruins it, slipping it into my pocket. Odd she left it by an open window, but maybe she was spooked by me crashing through the bushes towards her and didn’t get a chance to close the window fully.

I take Mal’s phone back inside and plop it in a container of rice to dry it out. I’m not going to be able to leave her now. Silly girl doesn’t have an alarm clock and her phone is out of commission for the next few hours. I may as well stay up and make sure she gets to work on time. I’ll sleep after she leaves since I’m on night shift again this week.

I prep her coffee maker, just like before, and clean up the house. Throwing out her ripped pants and righting the couch and cushions. I grab the mop and clean the mud from my boots off the floor. Collecting our combined laundry, I head downstairs and strip off all my clothes, throwing everything into the washer and starting it. I don’t want to track anymore dirt through the house. I put it on a quick cycle and strut back upstairs buck naked. It’d be hilarious for her to see me strolling around naked as she sleeps. I chuckle to myself at the thought, annoyed at myself again that the cameras aren’t up.

I enter the main bathroom and scrub my mask in the sink, leaving it hanging off the towel rack to air dry while I shower. Steam fills the room as the water cascades down my body. Remnants of dirt and blades of grass swirl down the drain as I lather, rinse, and repeat. My mind starts to race with all the ways to make Mal squirm from her inner turmoil for the next week. Ghost isn’t going to be around as much because of work but Graves will make his presence known.

The thought of her breaking the rules Ghost laid out for her and seeing Lennox anyways makes my dick swell. I know it’s fucked up. But, her saying "fuck you" to someone’s rules just to have me, makes me wild with lust; even if they are my own rules. Her fire is what drew me to her in the first place.

She’ll throw caution to the wind, I know it as sure as I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The only question is when will she succumb to her desire to have us both. The urge to unmask myself tugs at me relentlessly but I know it’s not time. She needs to love this fucked up part of me before I do that. She needs to irrevocably want Nox too. She has to be able to confess her feelings to me, to both of us, to unabashedly say “I’m in love with you, but him too.” It’s okay to want us both, my love, our feelings are the same. I fist my dick, willing my hard-on to go away. It’s too soon for her to take me again.

Mallory’s intoxicating scent clings to my skin as I step out of the shower. Feeling fresh as a daisy as my hard dick bobs, demanding my attention. Fuck it. I stroke myself to the thought of her defiance. The sparks lighting up her eyes as she takes what she wants, uncaring of the consequences that will rain down upon her. Unaware of the pounding her tight little hole will take because of her actions. Hell, she probably wants it, hopes I’ll fuck her into another coma because of the moves she’ll undoubtedly make on Lennox. I think of the way she screamed for me in the kitchen, the sound of my name pouring from her lips as her cum leaked from her slippery cunt. I hear her panting my name as I fuck up into her on the couch. My fantasies blending together in the perfect erotic day dream as I turn and shoot my seed into the tub.

I wash my splooge down the drain and then check the time, there’s about an hour until she needs to get up for work. I dry myself off and wrap the towel around my waist. Poking my head out of the bathroom without a mask is risky, she could have awoke to the sound of the running water and taken up hiding in a dark corner to get a peek of my flawless face. Mask in hand, I hesitantly make my way to the basement to flip the laundry and then head back upstairs.

Sighing, I pull the mask back on before opening the door. I set my own alarm clock on my phone, placing it on the nightstand next to the bed. As I gaze down upon her, I find myself wishing I was normal. That I wouldn’t have had to construct this whole elaborate scheme to get her to fall for the part of me I keep under lock and key. It would’ve been so much easier to just introduce myself to her and ask her on a date. I pull back the covers and slide beneath the blankets, tugging Mallory’s body flush with mine.

The more lost I get in my thoughts, the more I realize this is how it was supposed to be. If I was just a regular guy, I never would’ve been the one to free her from her abusive shackles. I would have gotten turned down for that date and we wouldn’t be where we are now. Mallory chooses this moment to nuzzle into my chest, breathing me in deep as a sound of contentment escapes her on the exhale of her breath. Sleep embraces her once more and I realize she’s better off because of me; because of my unhealthy obsession with the ebony haired goddess from the gas station, she’s finally safe and…dare I say, happy?

That’s the last thought I have as I, too, welcome sleep's sweet embrace with a smile on my face and Mallory held in my arms.