“Could be,” I admit. “Maybe that’s it. But honestly, I think it’s the fucking adrenaline in his system. From dealing with the dead again. I know he’s never felt more alive. He’s told me as much.”
She studies me for a moment and then nods. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” she says. “Eventually you will have to tell him how you feel. About what you want for the both of you.” She pauses. “And, Perry, based on what you’ve told me in the past, I know exactly why you’re holding back. The fear over those warnings. At some point you have to find out what matters more. What you want. Or what you fear.”
Two
November is a shitty time to be out riding your motorbike, especially in Seattle, and yet for some reason I thought the clouds would hold off today.
I was wrong. The minute I got on Putt-Putt and pulled away from Dr. Leivo’s office in Northgate, the sky opened up and let loose a torrential downpour. Going home via the I-5 would be the fastest way, but I didn’t trust drivers in this city. You’d think they’d know how to drive in the rain considering it rains all winter long, but they don’t, and especially not when you add a little motorbike to the mix.
So I take the long way, driving on side streets, cursing myself for not taking an Uber today while the rain sinks in through my leather jacket, my jeans soaked and cold.
But even with the rain as a painful distraction, I keep going over what Dr. Leivo said. Not just that I need to choose between my fear and what I want, but that she can see ghosts too. I wanted to talk to her about that in detail, because it’s not every day that you come across someone just like yourself. Especially since she’s a psychologist. I can’t imagine the kind of insight she might have.
I’m almost home, and even though the rain is still pouring and I’m completely drenched and cold, for some reason I don’t turn right onto East Denny Way toward the apartment. Instead, I continue along Bellevue Avenue until I’m in the First Hill neighborhood. My brain doesn’t even have time to catch up until I find myself coming to a stop outside the Stimson-Green mansion, AKA the haunted house.
I swing my leg over the bike and walk a few feet, stopping just where the lawn begins. I honestly don’t even know why I’m here, it’s like I was riding in my sleep for the last few minutes.
My phone beeps from inside my leather jacket and I know it’s Dex wondering if I’m done with my appointment yet and if he needs to pick me up in the storm, although now the rain has suddenly stopped, the grey clouds above growing lighter.
I stare up at the house, looking at it with new eyes in the daylight. It doesn’t look as scary as it did on Halloween. The paint job doesn’t look as tired and is a pale yellow instead of a decaying grey, and the dark brown trim looks well-maintained.
The lower windows are still boarded up, but the plywood looks fresh and new.
My eyes drift along the house, moving from the first floor to the third, searching. For what, I don’t know. There’s just some crazy energy pulling my eyes there, making me feel like someone is watching. Or something, of course. Can’t ever rule that fucking out.
That’s when I see it.
A figure.
At a window on the second floor.
A tall, familiar-looking man. A flash of red hair, large hands on the curtains, snapping them closed.
My heart drops in my chest, free falling as I stand there in awe, staring at the window curtains.
That couldn’t have been…
Max.
It looked just like him. I only saw the man for a second, and he wasn’t clear at all, but somewhere deep in my gut I know it was him.
That he’s in that house.
I start walking down the path, being pulled forward like a moth to a flame, not really processing what I’m doing. I just know I saw Maximus, the man who died saving my husband’s life, a man for all intents and purposes, I never expected to see again.
I climb up the creaking front steps, heading to the door.
I stop just before my hand grabs the handle.
What are you doing? I ask myself, blood pounding in my ears.
My hand starts to shake.
Moves forward.
Toward the handle.
Like I’m being pulled.
Like I’m compelled to open the door and walk inside and look for a man that I know is dead, the very man whose name I have tattooed on my ribs in memorial.
“Can I help you?”
I yelp, the magnetic energy between me and the house severing in two, and I spin around to see a man standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up at me.
Atlas Poe. The owner of the house.
He’s looking at me curiously, wavy dark brown hair blowing across his face in the cold wind, his cool eyes appraising me.
I haven’t seen him in the daylight before, so he takes me by surprise. He looks younger than I thought he was on Halloween, in his early thirties, though he’s dressed in all black just the same.
“I’m sorry.” I breathe out, my hand at my chest. Holy fuck, this is all sorts of awkward. I can feel my cheeks going red. “I don’t…”
“Didn’t know what you were doing?” he asks, slowly coming up the stairs toward me. He stops at the step below, yet he’s still taller than me. The dude has height.
I lick my lips, wondering how to explain myself. I figure the best way is always the truth. At least this guy will understand. He’s the one who gave us the tour of the place on Halloween, looking for his dead mother.
“I thought I saw someone,” I tell him.
He raises a brow but his expression doesn’t change. “Someone?”
“In the house.” I feebly point upward. “On the second floor. Someone I once knew.”
“Someone you once knew?” he repeats, more deliberately this time.
I can’t help but narrow my eyes. “Are you going to just repeat everything I say?”
Finally a hint of a smile. “I just caught you about to break and enter.”
“I wasn’t going to break and enter,” I tell him.
“So what were you doing?”
I cross my arms, staring at him for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I thought I could just walk in and see if I could find him.” I realize how crazy that sounds the moment it leaves my lips, even if it’s true. “I’m sorry, I’m obviously having some issues here.”
I move past him down the steps, but he reaches out and grabs my elbow. “You don’t have to leave. I know exactly what just happened to you.”
I eye his grip on me until he lets go, my heart hammering in my chest. Atlas, a supposed descendent of Edgar Allan Poe, doesn’t scare me per se, but there’s something about him that has all the alarm bells inside me ringing. There’s something not quite right about him.
It takes one to know one.
“Then what just happened to me?”
He gestures toward the house. “Why don’t you come inside and we can talk?”
I let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, no thank you. I saw enough the other night.”
“Right,” he muses slowly, his ice blue eyes growing sharp for a moment. I could have sworn a second ago his pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared black. “I trust you’re enjoying my stepfather’s money already.”