75

A fter the time with Clay in the field I had needed a moment to myself. It had felt incredible to take control, indulging in the craving of dominance and sin instead of managing the fear of our current predicament. I left Clay and his incessant questions behind as the venomous frustrations bubbled beneath the surface. What was wrong with wanting it all to stay the same?

The Manor would play nice if only they would.

We had stepped out of line—

No… I stopped, trying to collect myself. We hadn’t .

You have.

The Manor argued and knocked a lamp from the nearby wardrobe to the floor.

I hated that I couldn’t decipher between my true thoughts and the interference of the Manor. It wanted me to turn against them and it was working. Slowly I could feel it creeping up my spine and taking hold.

A knock at the door forced me to look up from my book where it laid open and unread in my lap. I found Wesley standing in the frame, his dark shirt pulled tightly over his broad shoulders and a stern look on his handsome face .

“Good afternoon, Wesley,” I hummed his name, knowing its effect on him, and looked back down.

The last few days were exhausting.

Every muscle in my body was tired and sore and no amount of stretching or warm baths seemed to help ease the ache in my bones. I hadn’t felt this exhausted in over a century, and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t immune to all the aches and pains that I had been for so long. I was hungry and tired, too cold and too hot.

I felt …human .

“I want to try to get you over the property line,” he said in a low, heavy tone, thick with purpose.

I looked up at him over my book, wanting to slap the smug look off his face.

“It won’t work.”

He crossed into my room and stood at the foot of my bed.

“Never took you as a pessimist,” Wesley grumbled.

I shot back at him in an icy tone,“I’m not, it’s just the truth. Did you come to mock me or–”

“What is going on with you?” He asked, just like Clay had, and Koen before him.

“Nothing.” I closed my book with force and stared at him. “There’s no point in trying to get me past the property line. You might as well put a bullet in my brain.”

Wesley barked out a surprised laugh at that. “I’ve been trying.”

“Try harder .”

Venom licked at my tired muscles. I hadn’t meant to sound so harsh or gloomy but I couldn’t take it anymore. With each passing day the dangers grew, the likelihood of any of them getting out alive shrunk, and I would be left here with the knowledge that I hadn’t been able to protect them. And where Koen and Clay had become doubly concerned, Wesley stared at me like I was a problem he could solve.

His chest rose slowly and fell even slower as he exhaled. “We have to try,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but it’s starting to piss me off.”

“Starting? You’ve been ‘ pissed off’ about my presence since the moment you laid eyes on me,” I hummed quietly, annoyed by his sudden shift, and let my head fall to the side.

“I’m pissed off for a different reason now,” he admitted.

“There’s nothing wrong,” I said. He may have been good at denying it but he’d looked at me differently since that day in the kitchen. “I’m in the same condition you found me in.”

“That’s bullshit.” Wesley leaned against the footboard of the bed and stared at me with judgment in his eyes. “You are slower to heal, disassociate in the middle of conversations, and hell, you have bags under your eyes! You look like you haven’t slept in weeks–” I opened my mouth to interject and he held a finger up to silence me. My back bristled and an irrational anger squeezed my chest. “–and I know you said that the Manor kept you from needing to sleep–but even Clay said you looked like you were suffering from fatigue. You’re moody. You barely leave this room, and you snapped at Koen yesterday during dinner.

He made a point, but Koen had listed everything we should be trying.

A list of things that I had almost killed myself trying over and over again over the last century.

It was annoying and frustrating.

“I’m not tired,” I denied, and shook my head. I was exhausted .

No you aren’t.

The darkness raked its claws through my thoughts. It had started to take its hold so much faster than it ever had before, gripping and tearing at the part of me that was able to reason and be calm and critical. I was all fear and rage and frustration. I was trying so hard to protect them, help myself, and keep the Manor at bay in any way possible–it was exhausting.

I wouldn’t allow myself to sleep, which had never been a problem before but the Manor seemed to have changed its rules for me. If I slept I had no idea what was happening to them, and it was easier for the Manor to keep me unconscious. It was like I was the only one who took the threat the Manor posed to their lives seriously.

No, that wasn’t true. I knew that wasn’t true. But then again, if they would just leave they would be safe and this could be over. I could sleep again. I don’t need sleep, I thought. I need them to be gone. I shuddered, feeling the black thought take over and twist my meaning in my mind. No! I need them to be safe. I tried to convince myself.

“Something,” his tone dropped, and the fire in his eyes turned cold with concern, “is wrong.”

“You’re in a haunted house with a caged monster, Wesley. What do you expect? Sunshine? Rainbows?” I asked him, my fingers digging into the sheets in anger. At the word monster it was almost as if I had slapped him.

“What, you're the only person who gets to call me that?” I said with malice as my lips curled into a tight smile.

“Your flippant attitude proves my point, Florence,” he answered. “I’ve always said that you were a monster but, for the first time since we arrived here, I think you're starting to believe it.”

Rage licked at my common sense. It seemed to be the first emotion my body found these days. I wanted to throw things and scream at the top of my lungs— the only way to find any release was through cutting words and violence. But it was always a short lived reprieve as the look of concern in their eyes would trigger the indignation again and the cycle would start anew.

“How about you crawl into bed and fuck the attitude out of me?” I snapped.

He huffed, shaking his head, and a few soft golden waves fell out of place. “That right there,” he said, eyebrows raised and with a know-it-all smirk. “Do you hear yourself? You know it’s not you. Stop trying to distract me.”

“You said it before. It's a release for you. Why can’t it be for me?” I asked, quickly growing more irritated with the conversation. Irritated with his presence. His gaze on me felt like fire in my veins, making my skin itchy.

He wants you dead.

The Manor groaned under the weight of our conversation. He felt it, eyes darting, ready for whatever object it may send flying his way.

“It can,” he sighed, like I should have known the answer. “But that’s not what this is about. This is you trying to strong-arm your way into a distraction so I stop asking questions. Just like you did to Clay the other day. It looked like fun.” He narrowed his eyes on me and leaned against the footboard.

His knuckles turned white. “But did you stop to think about what you were doing to him? Forcing him to participate when he’s emotionally pulled in a hundred directions?” He paused for effect, letting the weight of his words sink in. I forced myself still as the darkness imagined what it would be like to wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze until all the breath had leaked from his lips… I pinched my thigh under the blankets, trying to pull myself back from the daymare.

“You want to pretend that the Manor is at fault for all the pain over the last few weeks, but you are as much to blame as the walls and bricks we’re trapped in.”

“ I’m trapped . You are free to go,” I corrected him.

“You’re hurting them, Florence. You have to see that?”

I swallowed hard, searching for a way to get control.

Don’t let him take you.

It repeated until it was nothing but a chorus of eerie whispers at the forefront of my thoughts.

“Careful, Wesley,” I purred, pushing back the sheet and crawling across the bed toward him. “You keep asking questions. Someone might think you care about me.”

His face tightened with pain and frustration.

“I care about Koen and Clay,” he responded, the fire raging again, “and right now they’re worried about you.” He pushed my hand away as I reached out for his belt. “You’re acting like a fucking psychopath,” he spat. “This house is doing something to you. Pretend you’re immortal fine, but I know you feel it. Vengeful .”

“Vengeful? ”

Wesley smirked at me and I felt the anger dissipating around me as I sank into that moment with him. The window panes rattled as the house felt my surrender.

“It suits you.” He chuckled tightly.

“I’m not sure you understand how compliments work.” I scowled.

“You’re not as soft as the others believe. You aren’t as weak or hopeless. You’re intelligent and quick to learn. You are empathetic but there’s a darkness and bitterness from being trapped all these years. It comes and goes, and you fight it, but I can see it even if they don’t. You may not be a spirit, but you are vengeful.” He reached out and flicked a thumb over my bottom lip.

I sat back against the bed and glared at him.

“I’m not bitter,” I said, “and poetic sentiments, even from you, don’t change that this won’t work.”

“You are losing your softness and understanding and have replaced it with anger,” he said. “You're cruel and your words are icy whenever you speak to someone. You’re sick .”

I huffed out a dry laugh. It was loud, cold, and out of control but I didn’t entertain him with a response.

“If you’re so hell-bent on dying, what does it hurt to try to get off the property?” He asked me. “They need hope, Florence,” he added and it struck true, making me sick.

I’m the reason they were in this mess.

They’re the reason you are in this mess.

The Manor groaned, the floorboards rippling angrily.

It only added fuel to the fury that he was right .

“Fine,” I conceded. “But you’ll understand how idiotic a plan this is very quickly once the house starts truly punishing us all.”

“The house is punishing us.”

He had no idea just how bad it could get.