Darkness Falls

Chapter 16 (6-9-2022)

Venessa is crying into her pillow and screaming and just all around being upset. Frank hovers in through the wall. "Are you upset?"

Venessa sits up immediately. "You... what do you want?"

"Well I came to rub in my victory of course." He says. She throws her pillow and it hits him then falls to the floor. "Geee so touchy."

She refuses to speak to Frank.

"Are you upset because you soul bonded with that human?" He asks.

"How..." she starts.

"How do I know?" He chuckles. "I know things." He floats past her in a sort of taunting way. "What you should be asking is how ol Frank can help you."

"I don't need your help." Venessa grumbles.

"But I think you do." He replies. "You don't want to lose your first love connection."

"He isn't my first." She grumbles.

"No? He isn't. But he is the only one you cared about this much." Frank says.

Venessa frowns and looks away.

Frank chuckles. "You can't hide anything from me."

"You must have an offer then?" She says.

Frank nods. "I can ensure that he will survive the spell if you do something for me."

Venessa frowns. "I want all of them to be safe..."

Frank pauses. He had not expected her to care about all of them. "That wasn't the idea."

Venessa shakes her head. "All of them or our business is concluded."

Frank thinks about this. "No, I need their souls. Or... at least one." He thinks for a while. "What if we make a trade? Your father offered me four souls of the Pines family. What if I take yours instead but I get to keep one of the Pines family as well?"

Venessa raises an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like a good deal for you. Why should I trust it."

Frank shrugs. "You probably shouldn't but what other choice have you got?"

She thinks about his offer for a while. "You want Stanford don't you..."

"Correct." Frank says. "You can save the others though but Ford's soul belongs to me."

Venessa frowns. "I don't want to make that kind of a deal. I want everyone to be safe, not just trade one for all of them... and it isn't my place to just decide that either."

Frank nods. "I'll give you 12 hours to think about it." He floats through the wall again and disappears.

Venessa knows her father and brother aren't home. She goes down stairs.

The group down stairs are all chatting about life as if they weren't going to die in three days. Venessa walks in straight over to Ford and sits on the floor.

"Hey. You're risking a lot coming down here again." Robbie says.

Venessa nods. "I need to talk to Ford."

Ford looks up, eyebrows raised. "Must be important if you came down here."

"Frank wants your soul. He said he could make it so that everyone here could survive the spell under the red moon if instead we traded us to him in exchange."

Ford stares for a moment. "He specifically said that? The phrasing matters."

She nods. "He said. What if we make a trade? Your father offered me the four souls of the Pines family. What if I take yours instead but I get to keep one of the Pines family as well?"