76

K oen and Wesley accompanied me to the gate. Koen was rightfully terrified and clung to his gun like it could make him feel better. I was still getting used to wearing trousers. They hugged at my waist and skimmed lightly over my hips, accentuating the natural curves of my body. They were an odd feeling but they were much easier to move around in. The morning air clung to my bare arms and licked at my frozen cheeks as I stared at the gate.

“Stand over there,” I instructed, my eyes locked with Koens.

“Blossom…” He reached out to me, but I pulled away.

“It’ll be okay.” I forced a fake smile to my lips, so fed up with being treated as if I were incapable, too fragile and precious. Like I was their pet.

Wait, no.

I stopped and stared back at the house, confused.

I tried to organize my thoughts, to shake free of the encroaching hateful inclinations that eclipsed my own. I fought to find happy memories but I was met with brick walls and darkness. I was confused and every thought in my mind felt incomplete and twisted.

“Florence?” Wesley asked and stepped forward, barricading himself between me and Koen .

That only made me feel worse. Rage split the ends of my resolve and I practically growled at him.

“Do I need to send him away?” Wesley quietly asked me without caring about his tone.

“No,” I didn’t hesitate. Doing that would only make these emotions ten times harder to control and it was bad enough already. “I'm fine,” I insist, but I was far from that. I felt as if I were on the precipice of becoming exactly what Wesley had accused me of.

“Are you sure?” He snapped each word slowly, eyes glaring into me and searching deeply, letting the words sink in before he allowed me to continue.

“Let’s just get this over with,” I huffed. I spun on my heel and attempted to cross the invisible threshold at the gate. The reaction was just as immediate as expected. I was propelled violently through the air and slammed back through the doors of the Manor and against the wall by the stairs, sliding pathetically to the floor under the weight of the invisible pressure that had thrown me.

“Jesus!” Clay slid across the floor, setting his notebook down and extending his hands to me. “You alright?”

No.

“Yes.” I pushed to my feet and pulled my hands from his. He was so warm and touching him with my cold fingertips made me sad.

“You’re bleeding,” Clay scowled, and his lips jutted out as he handed me a handkerchief.

Because of you.

The curtains blew up dramatically, dancing in the sunlight. The Manor was elated.

“I’ll be fine.” I pushed around him, taking the cloth and pressing it to my collarbone where the blood trickled from a small cut. “It’ll heal in no time.” I gave him a tight smile before returning to Wesley and Koen, standing on the front drive, locked in a hushed argument.

“Again,” Wesley demanded.

“You saw what that did to her!” Koen hollered, fighting on my behalf for me.

“It’s okay, Koen.” I put my hand out and handed Wesley the blood-soaked cloth. “Wesley is trying to force the barrier to break by overusing it.”

Fire-filled hazel eyes met mine and sent a wave of heat through my body. His fingers brushed over the cloth, pausing to look down and, for a second, I thought he might reconsider his approach.

“Where Clay’s logic fails, your brute force might be the answer, correct?” I questioned.

“Can you do it again?” He asked me.

“Yes.”

And so I did.

I walked into the barrier only to be thrown, dragged, kicked, and tumbled back to the Manor. Each time, the house grew more violent. I was covered in scrapes and bruises that etched into my pale skin, and I knew from the dull throb that radiated from me that I wasn’t healing. When I hit the ground next I heard the bones in my wrist snap, a scream tore from my throat, and Clay tried to call time on the experiment until I could regain my composure.

“You can’t keep doing this!” He followed me down the stairs as I approached the front door again. My shoulders were beaten down and my legs shook violently, but I kept walking. The rage that filled my muscles was enough adrenaline to keep pushing.

Don’t let them stop you.

A sick, haunted laughter, pleasant and eerie, echoed through me and tickled at my muscles. The Manor was enjoying every single moment of my anguish.

Prove to them how cruel they can be.

“Florence! You aren’t healing!” Clay urged, the plea in his cracked voice demanding that I turn around to look at him. His shoulders were pinned back in a dark jumper that molded to his firm chest and flexed biceps. Gray eyes bore into me, screaming a thousand pleas to stop, but I couldn’t.

I didn’t have control anymore.

“Just stop.” His gaze dropped and his jaw ticked. “This isn’t working,” he said.

The Manor had always been in control but, at that moment, I could feel its venom coursing through my bloodstream. It was like we were melting together, and soon…

My memories flickered to Agatha Warren.

Her broken, crippled body. Curled into a ball on the bed before being flung into the air and torn apart by the house; she died alone the way she had lived for years.

But how long had she been here? She had been married and loved… hadn’t she?

So what had happened?

There were too many questions and not enough answers.

Fear gripped me .

If I died with them in the house…

They’ll die slowly, one by one.

“I can’t stop,” I said curtly, turning from the front door to Wesley and Koen.

They’d lose each other.

I could feel his stare on my back as I walked to the gate, with my vision pinpointing and my limbs trembling with each step. Koen reached out but I avoided the touch. I wandered to the furthest point before the barrier and stared at it.

Over and over again.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, Blossom.” Koen stood off to the side, his evergreen eyes pleading with me. Begging me to look at him and, if anyone could win out over the rage, it was him, but I couldn’t let him. I needed the rage to keep them safe.

Until they break.

I fought to ignore the dark whispers in my mind. The black hateful thoughts that I now understood were not my own, but the Manor’s hold on me. For years it had been whispering to me. How had it taken me so long to see it?

“If you can’t handle it, Koen, go inside.”

A strangled grunt left his lips and he nodded, stepping back out and disappearing from my vision. I could feel myself unraveling but there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening. But I could shove them back, keep them at arm's length until I could figure out how to protect them, if possible.

You can’t save them .

A mumbled conversation between Wesley and Koen floated over the constant hum of angry white noise in my mind. I could not actually hear them but was irritated by the whispering. Closing my eyes, I took one more deep breath and stepped into the barrier again.

The Manor was sick of my games.

My head flew back first, arms and chest following as it dragged me into the Manor on violent winds. I rolled across the hardwood floor and hit the wall with so much force the window above me rattled. I braced for impact as the house threw one last fit, the window shattering violently above me and raining glass shards down over me that sliced painfully into my skin and caused me to cry out.

I saw stars and the bones in my back screamed for relief from the rolling waves of pain that cascaded down through my body. The floor was cold when I pressed my forehead to it and tried to work through the pain that rattled my bones. The cuts weren’t deep, but there were so many of them that the pain was truly overwhelming as I tried to get up. Loose shards of glass fell from the movement, each one slicing further into my skin as they dislodged, speckled in blood, to the floor.

I gasped, my knees buckling as I dropped back to the floor and embedded the glass further into my palms, but I couldn’t stay down. I had to get back up. If I stayed down, the house would win, and I was through with being its victim.

My feet found purchase on the floor and I got myself upright. I stumbled toward the door and gripped the frame with my hands, forgetting the glass that had sunk into my skin. I hissed from the contact and leaned there for a second .

I heard Wesley’s heavy boots on the steps and, before I could protest, he was beneath me, his arms scooping my body against his chest and carrying me back to my room. Koen and Clay weren’t far behind, bounding up the stairs and through the door as Wesley finally set me down.

“Fuck,” Koen swore and disappeared just as quickly as he had arrived.

“Stay down,” Wesley warned when I tried to roll from the bed. “I mean it.”

His usually neat hair was in messy waves as he stripped from his overshirt and laid it on the bed. Kneeling his massive frame beside the mattress, his hand took my wrist and turned it over to examine it.

“That’s enough for today.” He scowled, picking the glass from my skin as carefully as his big hands would allow him. “Sorry,” he whispered when I flinched at his touch.

Clay kept his distance, no doubt still upset with me, but I could see how his hands curled into fists every time a shard was removed. My face was tight with pain and anger as Wesley placed them carefully on his undershirt—a small pile of glass and blood collecting on the fabric.

“I hate this,” Clay declared, throwing his glasses and book across the dresser. The sight of my unhealed skin was enough to make him leave and, as angry as it made me, I held on tightly to that little piece of me that wished he hadn’t.

They can’t stand the real you.

They’re turning their backs on you.

The human piece of me that just wanted to feel something other than venomous rage knew that those thoughts were not my own, but I heard them in my voice. I was confused and scared and so incredibly angry. It was as though I was not only locked in this Manor but in my mind as well, forced to watch as someone else took control of my actions.

“Alright, Vengeful,” Wesley hummed, feeling my body tense. “I’m almost done.”

“Don’t be kind to me now,” I snapped.

His jaw tightened when he looked up at me. “This kindness isn’t for you,” he responded, but I could see the lie as clear as day across his tight, handsome features. “It’s for them.”