“She’ll remain dead, don’t worry.”
My eyes go wide and I look at Dex. Don’t worry? She’ll remain dead?
“But yes, from the Veil,” he continues. “She needs the push. She needs to be invited. You two have the power to do that.”
“No offense, Donnie Darko, but we would never agree to that. We’re here to communicate, maybe even clear the place, if that’s what you want. This what-the-fuckery is the opposite of that.”
“You agreed last time.”
“We agreed to draw her out,” I speak up. “As in have her appear. We did not mean so that she can physically step back into the world. This isn’t Pet Semetary. You can’t just bring people back from the dead…”
But my voice trails off, because of course you can.
I did.
And I think he knows that.
Atlas stares at me for a moment, wheels turning. He then looks up at the house, the rain falling in his eyes, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trench coat before giving us a veiled glance. “Fair enough. I thought maybe you both would have a little compassion for a man who lost his mother, considering how you both lost yours.”
I freeze, feeling icy trails down my neck. I don’t even have to look at Dex to know he’s feeling the same way.
“I’ll leave you now,” Atlas says. “Please put the key under the mat when you’re done.”
Then he turns and walks quickly down the path toward the street.
I glance up at Dex, whose furrowed gaze follows Atlas’ every move until he disappears. “That wasn’t fair of him,” I mumble, trying to shake away the uneasiness, though I know there’s no point considering what we’re about to do.
“I don’t like how he knew that about us,” Dex eventually says.
“Me neither. But I guess it’s easy to find on the internet.”
“No,” he says, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s something he read on the internet about us. I think he just…knew. The real question is, what else does that fucker know about us?” He rubs his lips together for a moment before he glances at me, frowning. “Are you okay?”
I lift a shoulder. “A little cold and wet and spooked.”
“I won’t blame you for having second thoughts.”
I glance at the door, the way it seems to hum for me, promising things I can’t quite put my finger on. “Are you hearing any of those voices in your head?” I ask him.
“Not yet. You?”
“No. But this house has some wild, dark energy. Don’t you feel that pull?”
“Yep. All the more reason to never open up anything inside there, no veils, no portals, nothing,” he says. He starts to unzip his camera from the bag. “We just go inside and film and try to communicate with her…for fuck’s sake, we don’t even know her name.”
Samantha Poe.
The name just pops into my head, whispered very quietly.
“Samantha Poe,” I tell him.
His eyes go to mine, bewildered. “How did you know that?”
“I don’t know. I just…heard it. In my head.”
“A woman’s voice?”
“I’m not sure…” The more I try to think about the sound of the voice, the more I can’t hear it at all. Maybe I never did hear it.
“I might be wrong.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re not.” He nods at my purse. “You should bring out the EVP, just in case that thing hears things more than we do. And the flashlight. And the EMF meter as well.”
“I only have so many hands,” I say, rummaging through my purse.
Dex doesn’t say anything to that so once I’ve got the EVP in my hands, I look at him. He’s staring at me with the goofiest smile on his face, his expression catching me off-guard.
“What?” I ask. I can’t help but smile right back.
“You,” he says, bringing the camera up to his face, taking off the lens cap before looking through it at me. “There you are.”
I look away, feeling put on the spot, especially as the camera focuses on my face. “This is crazy, isn’t it?”
“That we’re right back where we started?” He peers at me over the camera, meeting my eyes.
“In a way, yeah. I just never thought we’d be doing this again.”
His mouth curls as he squints at me. “Did you really think that?”
I suck on my lower lip for a moment. The truth is, even if it was something I didn’t actively think about, I think my subconscious, some deep part of me, knew I would return to this in some shape or form. “I guess not.”
He grins, his tongue briefly poking through his teeth. “I guess the difference is, now I can touch you all I want.”
My brow raises. “Oh, you can, can you?”
“Perks of being your husband,” he says, stepping closer. He lowers the camera and grabs my free hand, pressing it against the fly of his black jeans so that I feel the thick, hard length of his erection.
“Good lord, Dex,” I say, glancing up at him. I give him a squeeze, just to see his eyes roll back in his head, hear the sharp intake of his breath. “Completely inappropriate, as always.”
He leans in, nose brushing against my ear. “You can’t tell me that you’re not turned on as fuck,” he murmurs.
I wasn’t, actually, until now. But even so.
I give him a stern look. “Dex. No.”
He just gives me a lazy grin, the heat in his eyes flaring up, causing my body to do the same.
But I’m not crazy. “We’re not fucking in a haunted house, okay?”
His expression doesn’t change. If anything, I feel him grow harder against my hand. “This hasn’t been on your bucket list?” he asks, his voice going low, husky, the kind of voice that gives you goosebumps. “Because it’s sure as hell has been on mine.”
“I wasn’t even aware you had a sexual bucket list,” I tell him, giving him another squeeze. “But of course you do.”
His eyes flutter closed, mouth falling open. “You know, you’re looking at me like I’m crazy yet you’re the one who keeps touching me.”
He’s right. But even though my body seems to want to check off his bucket list right now, the rest of me knows we have a job to do.
I take my hand away and place it at his chest. “Fair enough. Besides, you know we’ve already had sex in a haunted school. Doesn’t that count?”
He practically growls with disappointment. I have to admit, it gives me a lot of pleasure knowing how much I turn him on, even when I don’t mean to (and especially when I do).
“It’s not the same,” he says gruffly as I push past him toward the door. “And, if I remember correctly, you came three fucking times, and that was after you said I was crazy for wanting to have sex with you there. See, nothing bad happened.”
I pause and give him a wry look over my shoulder. “We almost died.”
He adjusts his dick in his pants and walks over to me, full of swagger. “Kiddo, when don’t we almost die?”
His tone is light and his eyes are dancing in that half-manic, half-carnal way, yet his words hit deep. Last night’s dream, combined with the real-life memory, flashes before my eyes. The time that “almost” became absolute.