Dalton
I sealed my fate by telling her this. I can feel the shadows beginning to crowd the room as I step toward her, reaching out to her, looking at her for what could be the last time.
I made a deal with the devil in her name. I signed it with blood. I was tricked. I failed to protect her.
I knew Vera would do this. Her plan was already in action years ago before I was hired to start bringing this hellhole back to life–a life Amos was desperate for. He wanted to see the return of the golden age of the property, when parties raged, and there were plenty of minds for him to plunder and the promise of further generations to keep fueling his fire.
Layla, a young, impressionable nursing student, stood out to Amos. She has no idea he’s been stalking her from afar for years now, biding his time. Why he waited to try to get into her head until now, I’m not sure, but I imagine it had something to do with the way Penny fought to stay above water and not end up buried in the family cemetery while this demon sinks his claws into fresh blood to ensure several more decades of feeding off the innocent.
“He tried,” I say to Layla. “He tried to take over my mind. I came here on the heels of my dad’s cancer diagnosis. My dad was supposed to be the one taking this job, not me. I figured out what Amos was early on.” I tell her about some of my experiences in other houses and other jobs, where I came into contact with all kinds of things I couldn’t explain. Some people are more sensitive to this kind of thing, even if I’d never admit it outwardly.
I saw Amos when he thought I couldn’t see him. I could feel him whispering in my ear, feel him trying to claw his way into my mind through the dreams he sent me.
When he couldn’t get to me, he let me see him for what he truly was, and at that point, there was no escaping him.
“When I left, he came with me. He can do that for short bursts of time. The bastard tormented my dad. He wanted me to return to this house. He wasn’t done with me. I was the only one who’d slipped through his fingers, and he hated it, obsessed over it. I had to come back to keep him from further harming my father. I could have walked away when my dad died two years ago, but then the ball was in motion to get you here somehow. I got whispers of it in my dreams. He wanted you, Layla. He wanted you more than he’d ever wanted anything before. You were his meal ticket for another lifetime, and I…” I meet her eyes, finding them misty, but understanding. “I couldn’t let him do it.”
“You stayed here because of me? But you didn’t even know me.”
“I did my best to delay him, but when he finally got you here, I tried to get you to leave before he had a chance to start fucking with you,” I admit. “I tried to scare you, to drive you out. When that didn’t work, and you started having dreams….” I let my own desires get in the way. I wanted her as badly as he did, maybe more. “He thought he’d finally beaten me. That I was playing into his sick little games with you. That you and I were forming a connection he could use to turn you against me when the time was right. He believed you’d kill me if he pushed you hard enough, scared you enough, made you distrustful but you–you didn’t.”
She submitted to me. She took me as I was. She wanted me, not him, and she eventually saw past his bullshit dreams. She saw past his manipulation. She was brave. She was hardheaded. She wasn’t afraid.
She was like me, the person he hates the most.
“He’s going to kill us both,” I tell her.
She stares up at me. I wonder how long I’ve been talking, rambling, honestly. This whole thing is unbelievable, every word of it, but her eyes shine with pain as she reaches up and strokes my cheek then tucks one of my curls behind my ear.
“You’ve been here alone this whole time? Did Curtis know? Bailey?” she asks.
“Neither of them. Curtis is somehow immune to Amos. I’m not sure why. Amos doesn’t see him as a threat. He takes care of the house, which in turn, I believe, is like taking care of Amos in a way. Bailey… she’s an easy target. I couldn’t let her see me. I couldn’t give Amos a reason to invade her dreams with my image. She would have been easy to break down if she slept here enough times. She’s good, Layla.”
“He’ll go after her,” she says hurriedly, a hint of panic in her voice. “Oh, God, Dalton. She stayed the night last night.”
“I know.”
“She told me she had weird dreams last night.”
I nod, a heavy weight settling in the pit of my stomach. It’s at the moment I see something shift on the far side of the room. A shadow plays across the wall before disappearing from view. My senses go on high alert when a screeching noise echoes through the house, and then a song plays several levels below us at an impossible loud volume.
“St. James Infirmary.”
Layla goes pale. “He–that night….” She stumbles over the words. “I thought it was you. In the foyer. He–he lifted me onto the piano and…oh, God! I thought it was you.”
She nearly collapses in my arms. I clutch her to me, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end as the energy in the house shifts to something charged and dangerous.
He’s here now. I can feel him. I can sense him trying to shove his way into my head, to take over like he’s been trying to for years.
He’s desperate now. He’s been pushing us both to the edge for the past few weeks. “Layla,” I whisper over the booming music. “Look at me, Angel.”
She does, her eyes shining with tears and terror.
“Whatever happens next, I need you to know that I–everything I did was for you. I tried, Layla. I tried to keep you out of this. He wants me dead and out of his way as much as he wants you to submit to him. I need you to leave this place and get as far away as you can, right now.”
She clutches my shirt. “Dalton, no.”
“Take your aunt and go. Can you get her down the stairs and into your car?”
“Maybe, but–”
“You have to leave. He won’t follow you if I’m still here. He can’t leave this place for long because of the spell. Besides, this is between me and him now. He’s been using my image to torment you, to haunt you. I don’t know how much longer I can keep him from–”
Pain shoots through the back of my head, something sharp and deadly. It cuts me off, and the second I close my eyes against the agony there, I feel him clawing into my subconscious. “You need to leave, now! Get your aunt out of the house. Get her off the property. I think–I think I can end this.”
“I’m not going without you!”
It takes all of my strength, but I push her up against my work table. “Listen to everything I say, all right? You are mine. You’ve been mine since the beginning. You will be mine tonight, and when the sun rises tomorrow, even if I’m gone, you’ll still be mine. He cannot have you. I will gladly die knowing I’m dragging him to hell with me.”
“What are you going to do?”
I take her face between my hands and kiss her soundly, roughly parting her lips with my tongue. She moans, gathering me close, and then I’m standing between her knees while she yanks at my belt, pulling it free from my jeans.
“You’re mine!” she shouts against my lips, her voice strained and full of hurt. “Dalton, please!”
This is the last time I’ll see her. The last time I’ll taste her on my tongue. The last time her soft voice will fill my ears, and her scent will wrap around me.
All of this has been worth it since it meant I got a few weeks with her.
I cup the back of her head and kiss her like my life depends on it–because maybe it does. Amos is raging now. I can hear glass shattering downstairs, several stories below. Layla must hear it too because she chokes out a sob and grinds her hips into mine. “P-Please, Dalton?”
Fear turns her on. She’s as dark and twisted as I am. It’s why she’s lasted this long.
I reach between us and pull her panties to the side, then bury my cock deep inside her pussy. I claim her with each brutal thrust, the table slamming into the wall, cutting through the music seeping through every crack in the floorboards. I hold her close, whispering praise in her ear, over her skin, until I feel her muscles clamping down around my cock.
“You’ve been such a good girl,” I tell her. “My Angel. Always, my Angel.”
She tangles her fingers in my hair and pulls me down so I’m caging her in against the table’s surface. Cans of paint fall to the floor all around us, splattering over the floorboards.
We ignore Amos. I ignore his raged attempts at breaking into my head as I drown myself in Layla and keep her at the forefront of my mind.
It’s so unfair that we don’t have more time. I could have married this girl. I could have the kind of life I’d thought I’d given up years ago with her by my side.
And because of that, I’ll do whatever it takes to send this beast back to hell so that she, at least, has a chance for the kind of life she deserves.
“D-Dalton,” she whimpers, her skin suddenly going frigid with chills.
“Eyes on me,” I rasp, knowing exactly why she’s suddenly going rigid to the touch. He’s here. Behind us. Watching us fuck like animals. He’s watching us–knowing she knows the truth, and that he’ll never have her.
I won.
After all of this time, I won.
Her climax rips through her, shaking me to my core. Her pussy spasms, the feeling leaving me breathless as I bury myself to the hilt and come hard, keeping her locked in place.
I haven’t even pulled out when I whisper in her ear, “Go.”
I look her in the eyes as I slowly pull out. They’re beautiful, but determined.
“I trust you,” she whispers against my lips, and then she’s gone.