Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 11 -

Thump, thump, thump.

I thrashed. I was tangled in something heavy and damp. Everything was dark and my lungs were crushed with fear.

Thump, thump.

"Samara!"

My eyes flew open and I gasped, sucking in air as if it were the first breath of my life. I was covered in sweat, naked, tangled in my bed sheets. Bed sheets...I was in bed. In my room. Light glowed beneath my curtains and I could hear the rattle of wagons and automobiles outside, the murmur of milling crowds. I sat up slowly, and held out my trembling hands for my own examination. There was no dirt on them, no dust, no hint of the horrors I had faced. But how...how had it felt so real?

"Samara, are you ignoring me or dead?" the door cracked open and Genevieve poked her head inside. Her dark hair framed her pretty round face in great ringlets that made a lion's mane around her, and my exhausted eyes could not seem to focus on her fully. The moment she laid eyes on me she gasped and rushed to my side.

"My God, Sam, are you sick?" she said, her Creole accent thickening in her worry. She laid the back of her hand against my forehead. Her skin felt blessedly cool, and I leaned into it, my eyes closing. I had surely been asleep for hours, but I felt exhausted. More than that, I was hungry.

I was violently, desperately starving.

"Samara? Please...look at me..." Genevieve caught my chin, tipping my face up to hers. I blinked rapidly, forcing my vision to focus, and licked my dry lips. "We have to tell Mary you ain't well."

Usually I would have protested. I had worked through sickness and exhaustion before. But this felt different. I felt as if I had truly walked to Lily Dale and back in a single night. It was impossible...but every muscle in me felt the ache. My feet were sore. My throat felt raw.

You're weak, Samara. So weak. A whining child. Let us make you strong.

I hugged my arms around myself, curling as Genevieve rubbed my back soothingly. I had seen glimpses of the Gray One before, but the Black One and the White One...I had not seen them since the night I was given my scars. December 31st, 1899.

Dr. Carnickey had told me it was the night the world would slide into place.

Genevieve had gotten up. She was leaving, saying something about going to tell Mary I was sick. I just nodded vaguely.

You know you hate them all, girl. None of them like you. Take up the cleaver. Do it.

I vividly imagined Genevieve staring at me in horror, my cleaver buried in her belly. Yes. Yes, that was what I wanted-

No! No...it wasn't. I shook myself, and reached up to give my face a hard slap. I had to get up. I had to go...anywhere. Fresh air would do me good. Just a day out of the house to ease my thoughts, and stretch the ache in my muscles.

I was fine. Everything was fine. It was only nightmares and...bad thoughts. Nothing more.

I went hastily to my wardrobe and began to dress. I pulled on the most subtle of my dresses, but it still held the token cut of a lady of the night: the hem swooped upward at the front while the train trailed low, giving a dangerous glimpse of my black stockinged legs. The bodice was designed to cinch into an alarmingly curvaceous waist, and was cut low enough about the breasts to tease. I did not feel like having such attention today, but in Mary's typical fashion she had neglected to supply me with anything that wasn't eye-catching, and I kept myself too busy to do shopping of my own. My hair was a bedraggled mess, so I quickly weaved it into a long braid over my shoulder. There was nothing to be done for the sickly pallor of my face, and the dark marks beneath my weary eyes. I snatched up my coin purse, and took a few bills from my little hidey-hole in a loose plank behind my wardrobe. I was surprised to see how greatly my hands were shaking, hunger making my stomach feel like a hollow, stretched-out balloon.