Page 72 of Fear Me Not

He tells me about believing I’d been having sex with him, only for that version of me to turn into something else and vanish. “It’s not the only time,” he admits. “There have been a couple of others, too, when I’ve been in bed and thought you’d joined me. I’m sorry if it’s made me distance myself from you. It’s not been intentional. I’ve just been wary.”

“Christ, that’s awful, Blake. No wonder I’ve felt like we haven’t been close. I figured it was just because of…” I circle my hand in the air, indicated everything else that’s happened between us.

“I know. And I am sorry.”

I force a smile. “Well, maybe there’s something we can find out that can help.”

“Yes, you’re right. If there’s something we can do…”

He trails off. He still doesn’t sound convinced, and I guess I can’t blame him. Exactly what do I think I can do to make things different?

But if I’m going to stay, it can’t be like this. I can’t live my life dreading the start of winter every time it rolls around. I realize it means I am seriously considering staying at Windridge, with these men. How could I leave them? They’ve become everything to me. I can’t picture my life without them in it. I need them, every part of them. My heart needs their love, my body needs their touch, and my soul needs their security.

Blake takes my hand, and we head to the basement.

This is my least favorite part of Windridge Hall. All cellars are creepy, but considering everything that has happened here, this basement is creepy with an extra dose of creepiness. The boiler growls like a living thing, clanking and ticking as though to make itself known.

I still haven’t been able to shift the sensation of someone grabbing my hand in the laundry chute. I’d like to pretend it was my imagination, but knowing what I do now about the hotel, I’m fully aware that it wasn’t.

At the top of the stairs, Blake clicks on the light, and we descend into the basement. We go back to the room with all the old boxes, where the decorations had been stored. The boxes they’d been in are back down here now, since the decorations are all hung. But those aren’t what we’re after this time around.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Blake asks, taking the lid off one of the larger wooden crates.

I let out a shaky breath. “History, in particular anything relating to young women who might have gone missing or been killed here. Any portraits or photographs or even names. I don’t believe it’s the hotel that’s haunting us. I think it’s the people who were here before. They’re trapped here. Maybe we can free them.”

He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe such a thing is possible, but he starts looking.

“Focus on the older stuff,” I tell him. “I don’t think whatever we’re seeing is a recent occurrence.”

He starts to sort through boxes.

“How do you know this is something that happened a long time ago? What if these memories… these echoes… are from something more recent?”

I bite my lower lip. “I have considered that. I even wondered if they might be the women who were here before me. The ones you brought here for winter.”

He pauses in his rifling and snaps up his head. “You can’t be serious?”

“Why not? You’ve never told me anything about them. About what happened to them after winter was over.”

“That’s because nothing happened to them. They just left. And I haven’t told you anything about them because they were no one of importance. It wasn’t the same as it is with you, Pen. I mean that. It was just an arrangement. No emotions were involved, I swear. Hell, Dov barely even emerged from his room most of the time.”

I know it’s childish to feel jealous of these women who came before me, but I do. I almost don’t want to hear about them, to pretend they never existed, but I can’t.

“Did any of them experience what I am, as far as seeing things goes?”

Blake thinks for a moment, his lips pursing, his head tilted to one side. “Yes, but not to the extremes you have. More bumps in the night kind of stuff rather than actually seeing people.”

There’s another burning question on the tip of my tongue. “Did they stay in my room? In my bed?”

“No, Pen. They didn’t. That room is all your own.”

I don’t know why that’s so important to me, but it is, and a knot inside my chest loosens.

“So what makes you think the woman you saw was from the past?” he asks.

I consider this. “Her hair and what she was wearing. She had a short bob that was parted on one side and had fake waves through it. And the clothes she was wearing looked old fashioned, too.”

“I see.”