65

“ Y ou’ve said that before but what the hell does that even mean?” I asked her.

Her body shivered, and I instinctively stepped back because the urge to keep her warm still ran through my veins. I had become habitually comfortable with laying in bed next to her, me healing and her… whatever the hell she had been doing.

It was strange to see her with so much fight, standing in the center of the room, shivering from the cold and defensive from our questions. Florence had spent the better half of the week curled up and quiet in my arms. I swallowed away the need to feel the comfort of her body against mine and shifted so the ache in my leg returned and filled me with a sharp pain instead.

Better in pain than longing for...

“You can’t tell me that you haven’t felt it?” She said, looking around at us with those cold, green eyes. “Or seen it.” She looked at Clay.

“The house shifts, it's impossible to map. There are lots of different supernatural reasons that could be happening.” He shook his head at her, slightly confused.

“You’re smarter than that. You’ve known for a long time. It will follow a pattern to toy with your mind and then stop altogether to make you feel crazy but it’s all a game. The house…” she stopped again and curled her bare feet against the cold floor.

“Let her get warm,” Koen protested.

“Not until she tells us the rest,” I demanded, not taking my eyes off her.

“Wes,” Clay huffed under his breath.

“No,” I said. “We've been doing this your way for too long and it’s gotten us nowhere. Keep talking and I’ll let Koen find you some socks.”

Florence stared me down. It seemed the little girl who cowered from men was miles away. “The house has never allowed me visitors. The only other person who I ever saw alive in this Manor before you all was Agatha herself, and when I found her—” She paused and shivered, but not from the cold, from memory, I could place that haunted expression anywhere. I saw it often enough on Koen. “–I would scarcely call that living. ” She finished, not elaborating further.

“So why didn’t it hurt us that day?” Clay asked her.

I waved Koen off with the wiggle of my fingers when I saw his feet tapping impatiently on the wooden floor. He slipped out the door quickly, in pursuit of warmer clothing for her.

“I don’t know,” Florence said.

“Wrong answer.” Her eyes snapped to mine.

“It’s been…quiet,” she said. “Unusually so. Moments of anger, displeasure, here and there, but nothing outwardly violent toward any of you.”

I pointed to Clay’s face, drawing her attention to the fresh cut on his cheek. “While you’ve been sleeping it’s been attacking us, everyday this week. I would call that violent. ”

She looked at Clay, worrying her bottom lip, and tried to hide her concern for him. Her hair framed her terrified expression in messy waves and the urge to reach out was overwhelming.

“I thought maybe killing the ghoul satisfied it for a while, but I was wrong.”

“The temperature, the outbursts, your…coma?” Clay listed all the unusually malicious activity.

“It's the Manor. It puts me to sleep regularly, usually after I’ve done something it deemed worthy of punishment. I don’t ever know the exact amount of time, I told you that, ” she says in Clay's direction. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt any of you?” She paused, the softness returning to her features as Koen slipped back into the room and knelt in front of her.

“No one was harmed.” Clay quelled her fears with a lie. We had the bruises and scrapes to prove that harm had come to us all while she slept but the guilt of that knowledge would only stall her further.

“Blossom,” he said, tapping her calf and getting her to lift her feet for the socks he found.

Jealousy bit at me, watching her balance on him while he touched her.

Grow up , I told myself.

“We’re fine,” I cut Clay off before he mentioned the library, his mouth open and ready to worry her. “So you’ve been doing this for over a hundred and fifty years and never noticed anything strange?”

“Of course it’s been strange!” Florence cried exasperatedly. “What is not strange about this place? This whole situation?” She struggled to regain her composure and, as much as I hated to admit it, I don’t blame her for the outburst.

“And Agatha?” Clay asked .

“I told you everything I know about her. She was sick when she died, weathered, and incredibly old. From what I could tell, she wasn’t trapped here, at least not to my knowledge.” The words came out harsh and felt heavy as she leaned subconsciously into Koen’s gravity. His hand trailed over her waist, toying with the t-shirt at her hip between his fingers. “Her husband had died years before I’d ever come to the city; they never had any children. She was a widow, yes, the town shut in but… .”

”You’re lying,” I grumbled. It seemed to be the only accusation I felt comfortable making against her.

“I’m not.” She defended her words but she wasn’t telling us the truth. It was obvious she was confused, perhaps even being influenced, but it didn’t matter. We needed her honesty, and we needed the information. The gears that turned in Clay’s mind were so loud they filled the room.

“There was a letter,” he finally said. “From Agatha. Do you have it still?”

“You read my diaries?” She narrowed her eyes on him.

“It was in the library,” Clay said, “I would not have if I thought it wouldn’t provide information. You need to show me the letter, Florence.”

Again her head drifted upward, as though she was listening to a far away noise or disturbance. The furniture in the room rattled roughly like it might move or even splinter. I watched as she blinked slowly, her expression pensive and attentive.

“I cannot,” Florence said.

“You won’t.” I stepped forward. “There's a difference .”

“I cannot,” she repeated harshly.

“Don’t you want out of here? You’ve been adamant about it but keep Clay in the dark with your lies and bullshit. What are you so afraid of?”

“You should all be afraid–” Darkness flickered across her eyes, like ink filling her irises and then in an instant it was gone and the emerald shine was back.

“—Of you!” I shouted and she flinched.

“Wes,” Clay cautioned. “That’s enough.”

We stood in silence for a tense moment, none of us knowing how to proceed until Koen cleared his throat and took charge. “So if Agatha died of old age, why are you…” Koen swallowed, “...immortal? Why are you trapped if she wasn’t?”

Such a funny word, immortal. She didn’t age or wither. In years, she was older than us, but her mind and knowledge of the world was stunted. It showed her age and, despite trying to hide it, it embarrassed her. As much as the word felt wrong to describe her, it was the only thing that explained her still pristine skin that was soft under the pads of my fingers. Memories of quiet, unbothered moments rising to the surface made me clench my jaw to stop my thoughts from wandering into a place I couldn’t return.

“You think I haven’t attempted to figure this all out?” Her voice broke. “I’ve spent years scouring that library for answers, begging the walls of this god-forsaken place to tell me what I did wrong to deserve such a cage. All met with silence, all my questions unanswered.”

“A pretty comfy cage.” I ground my teeth together.

“A cage so pretty sometimes I forget that’s what it is. Sometimes I am thankful to be trapped.” Her head whipped to me, fire burning green in her eyes. “It may seem like I have what I need here, a life unmarred by troubles and sickness, Wesley. But you do not know what spending over a hundred years alone is like. Untouched. ”

Her words were pure venom, anger brimming just below the surface of all that sadness that consumed her—a vengeful little thing in the making.

“So the house brings you here, Agatha dies, and it takes you. Why?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.”

“How do we know you aren’t the reason Agatha Warren is dead?” I stepped forward, and she stepped back, but the usual rush of adrenaline that I felt when dominating over another person never came. Only guilt for making her scared. Shite.

“Is that what you believe?” Florence’s words were shaky. “That I could kill an old woman?”

“You killed a week ago,” I snapped, stepping even closer to her, eclipsing her size with mine as I spat my next words. “I watched you slit its throat.”

I had gone too far. I knew it. They knew it. The air in the room became suffocating the longer she stared at me. Her eyes were brimming with tears. The first time I had brought her to that edge, it had given me joy to see her fall apart. A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. As I retreated, Clay stepped closer, creating a distance between us that couldn’t be missed.

They had taken sides.

Fine.

There was no apology I could make to Koen and Clay that wouldn’t infuriate them more than they were in that moment. Both of them circled her like moths drawn to a flame. Ready to protect her if the conversation crossed the line further into an altercation.

“ A monster ,” she said quietly, her voice a whisper as I turned to leave the room, “and I did it to save your life.”

The shame of stepping over a line ate at me as I limped back down the hall to my room. I sunk down into the large armchair facing the fireplace and closed my eyes. The anger that washed over me was frustrating beyond words because, as much as I wanted to feel it toward Florence, it was directed at myself.

I rubbed the tension from between my eyebrows and tried to work through the emotions that suffocated my logical thoughts. She could still be a monster. The conversation proved that much to be true. It was convincing Koen and Clay of that danger that was tricky. Like walking on thawing ice, I had no idea when it would break away from beneath me, but I knew the threat was there and the plunge into the icy water would be painful. The longer I let them dance around in the little fairytale they had created, the worse the fallout would become.

If she was dangerous, she would need to be put down. But the answer wasn’t that simple because, at the thought of causing her harm, my fingers clenched around the armchair and my body resisted the idea.

Betrayal in the highest form. My heart to my mind.

Killing her would sever any relationship I had with Koen and Clay, I knew that, but it could also be what saved their lives and, in the end, a sacrifice like that made sense to my brain. I was a product of my upbringing. If my father were still around he would tell me I was right about maintaining my skepticism of her, about protecting my family at all costs.

But he was the reason Wyatt was gone.

Our father had pushed Wyatt away because of his fear. A fear of the unknown. Of his son having a heart that one day would get him killed. And, while he was validated in that fear, it still felt… ridiculous.

Florence, for all her small flaws, didn’t look like a monster; she didn’t feel like one either and it was fucking with my head more than I wanted to admit. Each step to a solution felt like drowning. I licked my bottom lip, opening my eyes and staring into the dying fire.

Realization hit like a freight train. My body craved the warm sensation that flooded over me when her eyes found mine. I had jumped at the chance to help her heal, to warm her body with my own not because of a sense of debt or duty to return the favor, not even because I knew it would break Clay and Koens hearts if she hadn’t recovered- like I had tried to convince myself. It was because I couldn’t bear it either.

I lashed out, kicking over the table with my foot. It sent a sharp pain rolling through my body that pulled me back to reality. Whatever this was, whatever was happening to us, to me. I couldn’t let her win. I wouldn’t lose my family.

The sun bore down on my back, creating slick ribbons of sweat that trailed to the hem of my jeans as I slowed my pace and caught my breath.

“Where have you been?” Clay leaned against the doorframe of the ornate glass doors that lead into the backyard. His hair was messy, pushed back with his glasses, and he wore a tight navy dress shirt with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Walking, jogging, running,” I clipped and braced myself on my good leg. The other throbbing painfully from the overexertion. Anything to get my mind off of her.

“You’ve been gone for hours,” Clay noted. “You can’t just run off and not tell anyone…”

“I was fine. I just needed to clear my head.”

“We don’t know if that ghoul had more friends. We don’t know what's in those woods. It was stupid to go off alone when you’re injured.” He pushed off the door and stepped out into the sun, his gray eyes narrowing as he approached.

“The danger is in that Manor.” I shook my head. I had proof: a new, nasty cut festered on my cheekbone from a piece of window frame that had blown out while I was passing it. She hadn’t been lying. The house felt alive. It was just whether or not she was at the helm of it all. That’s what ate at me.

“You’re giving us all whiplash.” Clay stared at me, still pissed off about the conversation with Florence when she woke.

I had been stewing in those emotions for days, rolling around in them, trying to piece myself back together. It was like rewiring a bomb; one wrong wire in a socket and I was suddenly taking a three-hour run just to feel something other than the overwhelming need to find her and understand her.

“She’s sad, Wes,” Clay said.

“What do I care?” I swallowed down the urge to lash out at him.

“Have you stopped to consider that she enjoys having you around? Despite your insistence that she’s pure evil, she finds your company amusing!”

“Lying about her feelings isn’t going to change a goddamn thing, Clay.” I looked at him and straightened out when the burning in my chest subsided. “She’s still a–we still don’t know what she is and she could get both of you killed. Koen almost froze to death pulling her from that water and for what? So we can stand around and listen to more of her lies about this god-forsaken Manor?”

“Would you have believed her?” Clay asked me.

“I don’t believe a single fucking thing that comes out of her mouth and you shouldn’t either! What matters is that this place, these walls, are dangerous; for all we know she’s behind it. Luring men inside, killing them to feed the evil and keep herself alive.” I kicked the dirt under my feet and stared at the ground to avoid the annoyance in his gray eyes. I was picking up steam, spouting out venom that I didn’t really believe anymore but needed to say because some broken part of me needed to be right. That had to be the voice of reason–even if I didn't really know that reason anymore.

“She probably killed Agatha. You can’t find a deed because it doesn’t exist. Florence is the monster. You’re just too sex-drunk to see it. If you wanna stick your dick in something we can stop at a strip club on the way out of town!” My voice rose in volume the more upset I got about everything.

When I looked up at Clay his fist connected with my face. I tripped backward, caught off guard by the punch that painted stars in vision. I didn't wait to counter, surging forward the second I found my footing and wrapped my arms around his waist, knocking him off his feet into the dirt.

“Let’s just get this over with and end her!” I grunted in between short breaths.

His hands came up, wrestling me off him and rolling us over. He punched my sore bicep with a heavy hand, causing me to yell out before he laid another into my face.

“Stop being a fucking asshole,” he growled, perched above me with violent rage flickering across his face. “I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to get her free, and I’m going to prove you wrong.”

I bucked him off me, knocking him off balance into the gravel, and pushed to my feet. A little disoriented, I stumbled to the left and shook the dizziness from my vision.

“See, that’s the problem.” I coughed as the blood from my nose dripped into my mouth. I lifted my hand to my face and touched the blood. “It’s not about your curiosity anymore. This isn’t about research. It’s about her. ”

“There’s nothing wrong with falling in lo—” He stopped himself from saying it. Words that Wyatt had spewed a thousand times before getting his throat ripped out.

“Say it,” I demanded and charged him.

My hand wrapped around his throat, but he didn’t fight me. He just turned his teary gaze away. “Say it, Clayton.”

“There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, Wes,” he choked out, and I shoved him backward.