Page 16 of Ash and Poison

I’ll be waiting, Pussycat.

Dear A,

The spiders… Did I tell you, they have too many eyes, and they smell of smoke? Like someone has left them in a burning house for a day or two. He smells the same.

I wake up every night and I’m not in my bed. He’s standing over me, and he's always in my bed.

He’s buried deep in the darkness, his horns twisting like madness in his eyes.

I only see his eyes.

I wake up every night and I’m trapped. I run, but the monster is faster, quicker, stronger. He always catches me.

I wish I wouldn’t wake up.

But I wake up every time and that’s the worst of it all.

I hate that I wake up.

I... don’t want to.

Riley.

5

TWISTED DESIRE

ASHER

It had been one hell of a day, and it wasn’t over yet.

Sheriff Poppycock and his deputies had been running around all day, questioning everyone. And they didn’t look like they’d be done with this anytime soon.

I was in the reception area, watching the chaos unfold when Vincent walked in with Diya. They looked cozy together, and she was smiling.

“Can I, at least, question him?” Vincent asked.

Diya shrugged.

“Asher,” Vincent said, eyes narrowed.

Diya shifted from one leg to another next to me—I still couldn’t understand why she wasn’t already blurting my secrets out to him.

Vincent, Riley and I were friends once… but we stopped being friends when he abandoned Riley.

“Where were you last night?” Vincent asked, crossing his arms.

Diya scoffed before she turned to Vincent, flashing him a bright smile.

“He doesn’t talk,” she said, her voice dripping with mockery, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. She was trying to get under my skin and wasn’t trying to be subtle about it.

I clenched my jaw, and her eyes flashed with happiness. She saw me, and she was enjoying this little fucked up game too much.

“Ah, I see he’s still pulling the same bullshit,” Vincent said. He crossed his arms, staring me down like a criminal he’d caught in the act. But this wasn’t a court trial, and I wasn’t his perp. “You’re not fooling anyone, Asher,” he said.

He wasn’t about to let anyone—especially me—off the hook without digging deeper.

I shrugged.