Page 59 of From the Shadows

As my existential crisis truly digs in its claws, the thump-flicker-skoosh ends in axis-tilting eye contact with the mother of all fucking nightmares as its head breaches the seal.

My stomach lurches, and bile rises in my throat, searing the tender membranes, burning as I force it back down. My mouth floods with saliva, and my skin pulls tight as goose bumps race to cover the entire surface of my body. I swallow, again and again, breathing through my nose, praying to a god I hope exists, and watching the impossible—improbable—in real time.

It’s coming in here. It is singularly focused on invading my space and killing me, one way or another.

The butcher block holds nothing but short-handled knives, far too close, too intimate for this… this… God, it’s hell. I retreat, momentarily, to the kitchen, grab the only tool I can think of, and carefully tiptoe back to the scene of the crime. If I had a shotgun, I’d use it, blast that thing until its parts were scattered all over my mudroom. I’ve cleaned up worse.

But I don’t. I have a tomato knife. My pride and joy, serrated blade, forked tip. Ironic fucking poetry, if you ask me.

The thump-flicker-skoosh is working in someone’s favor.

Not mine.

The large black triangle shaped head is fully inside my house. The invasion is under way and I… I feel faint. Dizzy. And the contents of my stomach only have so long until they are out in the wild.

Brave. I have to be brave and face my fear.

One tentative step becomes two as I watch it struggle and squirm and skoosh, skoosh, skoosh.

It tracks my approach, tongue tasting the air.

I stand as close as I can force myself to, doing math involving the height and thickness of my rubber boots and the mere inches of space the intruder occupies and the limited range it’s able to move.

Once my decision is made, I stab. Straight down through the top of its head, the yawning mouth putting razor sharp fangs dropping with venom on full display, and I pin it to the wooden floor.

I don’t know if it cries or makes any noise as its nerves fire and twitch in its dance of death. The only sound I hear is my pulse thundering and vomit splattering across the floor—and the corpse.

Is that insult to injury? Does that count?

I sink to my knees and scramble back, falling over myself to put whatever distance I can manage between me and the door. I stare at the mess, terrified that it’s going to reanimate and be excessively pissed off. That it’s just gathering its strength to pop the forked end of the knife out of the wood and use it to pull the rest of its body through the door and then jam it into my foot, up my leg, use it to get to me, use it to hold me in place to torture me.

Are these rational thoughts? Absolutely not. But I don’t feel particularly rational at the moment either. What if the other ones outside decide to come check on what’s going down? I mean there was a lot of flailing and now, I assume there’s not. I should stand, go peek through the window and see.

My stomach roils at the thought so instead of any shoulds I glance around for a whopping two seconds looking for something to use as a basin. God knows I already have enough to clean up here. There’s nothing. Of course, there’s nothing because I spent my day cleaning and tidying and organizing.

Desperate, I shove off my rubber boot and use it. Emptying my stomach until my eyes burn and my body hurts.

Buzzing after repeated buzzing breaks through my haze, and it takes longer than is reasonable to realize it’s my phone. It takes even longer to calm my shaking hands enough to answer.

Chapter 24

Doctors & Damsels

EDDIE

When shit goes off the rails, it really does it spectacularly.

Teague pulls the whiskey decanter from the desk and walks it across the office to the sideboard far away from both Christophe and me. I would love to say I’ve had more than my share or at least enough to numb my brain, my heart, but a dram is all I managed. More accurately, Teague was likely afraid the boss would disrespect it and throw it across the room.

It’s been a day.

“Where?” Christophe asks gruffly. “He’s been keeping that shit where? Endangering my woman? What if Winnie had wandered down there and⁠—”

“I’m not an unsupervised child.” She places her hand on his chest, and he places his on top, sliding it to where tattoo film sat not that long ago.

“But you are carrying my child, honeybee. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

She merely shrugs. “You’d find the responsible party and dismantle them for Jess to clean up.”