“Amber, what the heck? You could have really hurt me.”
“Shawn, you need to get out, or you will get hurt.”
He tilted his head and studied her face for a moment.
“Amber…” he said with a low voice. He didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence. She knew precisely what he was thinking. Given their history, even the hint of a threat from her to him would likely land her in trouble. He never took out a restraining order against her or anything, but there were plenty of cops who would remember Amber and her temper.
“Not from me, Shawn—it’s this house. It doesn’t want you here and it’s going to try to hurt you.”
The sad empathy in his eyes made her hand tighten on the wasp spray. With a tiny bit more pressure on the nozzle, the spray would erase that look from his eyes. She angled her hand down to remove the temptation.
“Listen,” Amber said. “Put all of our history aside for a moment.”
“I can’t…” he began to say.
“Just listen, Shawn. You always told me that I carried all my old problems with me from place to place. Maybe you were right. I can admit that. Can you just take my word for once and believe that some of my old problems are here in this house?”
“I’m here to help, Amber.”
“Trust me—the only way you can help is to clear out of here while you’re…”
A thump from the rear of the house made her stop.
Shawn’s eyes went wide.
“Who’s here with you?”
# # #
He got to his feet and moved towards the hall before she could get in his way.
“Could you listen to me, Shawn? Just once?”
“Come out,” he called. Over his shoulder, he said, “You don’t have to hide anything from me. Who’s here?”
The door to Evelyn’s room was creaking open.
“Shawn, don’t go…”
Amber ran to intercept, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch him. Shawn was through the door to Evelyn’s room and the door was slamming shut behind him. Amber lowered her shoulder and threw herself into the door. It tossed her back like she weighed nothing. Slammed against the opposite wall, Amber dropped the can of spray and shoved her phone into her pocket before she twisted the handle and tried to force herself back in.
From the other side of the door, she heard Shawn’s voice.
“Amber, what did you do in here?”
He sounded puzzled and almost amused at first.
Amber slammed her fist on the door.
“Get out of there, Shawn. Get…”
“Amber?”
He didn’t sound amused anymore. Now, he sounded frightened.
“Oh, no, what did you…”
That’s when he started screaming her name, over and over.
“No, no, no,” Amber said to herself. Twisting the handle with one hand, she slammed her shoulder into the door again and again. It didn’t feel like wood attached to metal hinges anymore. This was a solid block of cold concrete that she was throwing herself against. If she ran outside, into the darkness, she knew that the windows would be just as impenetrable. She was a child again, helpless to oppose the forces that had possessed the house.
Amber screamed in frustration, turned, and pressed her back against the door as she listened to Shawn’s cries dissolve into wordless pain.
His voice cut off in the middle of a moaning plea.
Amber turned and put her palm against the door.
“What did you do to him?” she whispered.
The knob turned on its own and the latch clicked.
# # #
Amber bent at the knees and reached down, searching with her fingers until they closed around the can. It made her feel better to have the wasp spray in her hand even though she couldn’t imagine what good it would do against a demon. With her toe, she nudged the door to Evelyn’s room inward. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of Shawn. Curled on his side in the middle of the empty floor, Shawn’s perfectly still body was covered in a layer of ash.
Amber slipped forward. For the moment, she was oblivious to the danger of the door slamming on her. That fear was forgotten as she studied Shawn, desperately hoping that he would move and prove that he wasn’t dead after all.
“Oh Shawn,” she whispered. “What did it do to you?”
The ash had settled on him like a layer of snow. Through the ash on his head she could see his hair. His black hair looked white under the ash.
When she was only a few inches away from him, he gasped, sucking in a breath and letting it out with a sobbing shudder. Amber dropped to her knees and tossed the can aside so she could lay her hands on him and prove to herself that she hadn’t imagined the sound and movement. He shrank from her touch.
“Shawn, I’m so…”
He lifted the arm that was wrapped protectively over his head and he opened red, weeping eyes to look at her.
“Stay away from me,” he said. A line of drool hung from the corner of his mouth.
She raised her hands. “I won’t touch you, I promise. I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
He pushed at the floor, putting more distance between them.
“I have to get out of here.”
“Of course,” she said.
His eyes went to the door and flared wide. Something frightened him, but looking at the doorway Amber couldn’t tell what it was.
“How could you?” he asked. Instead of waiting for an answer, he was already pulling himself towards the door. Shawn struggled to his knees and then got to his feet so he could bolt through the doorway all at once. She heard him run through the living room and she was in the hall by the time he
