Your Worst Fears

Chapter 35: Turn of Events

The ride home from Edda's was tensely silent. After everything that had happened, and everything Edda had said, I guess it was too much; I know it was for me.

Courtney agreed to stay the night with Edda, which Nick didn't like. "I don't trust her to be here with you," he'd said. "Not after everything that's happened."

"But she has no protection," Edda explained. "The relic protects Amber, and it has marked you, which will protect you forever. Courtney, on the other hand, is more vulnerable than ever right now because of everything that's happened. Like an infection hunts a way inside, so does malevolence. She is broken—an open wound—and we have to give her time to heal. I can speed that along; let me."

"So, you're like her spiritual antibiotic?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes, Nicholas, that's exactly what I am."

He threatened Courtney before we left, who simply nodded in response. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

Nick offered to take me home, but I wasn't ready just yet. I wasn't ready for Mom to bombard me with questions, or for Dad to fuss at me about Nick. I also wasn't ready to be alone, mentally not physically. They didn't understand what was going through my mind right now like Nick did.

We finally made it back to his house, and as we walked in, a strange feeling came over me. As I walked to his room and sat down on his bed, remembering the fear I'd felt when I was last here, I couldn't help but think about everything.

Was this it? Was this really it?

Sadly, deep down, I knew it wasn't. Kakos, my worst fears, whatever it was, might be gone, but there were more to take its place.

"Are you okay?" Nick asked, watching me from the doorway of his bedroom.

I shrugged. "My phone's gone."

"Oh, here," he said, handing it to me. "I forgot I had it."

I took it, not surprised to see several missed calls and messages, over half being from Mom. I'd not only missed our check-in, I'd missed work, too, and hadn't called in. Yep, that's terms for dismissal.

"Well, at least I can just move out if they try to ground me for life," I admitted. "Oh, no, wait... I can't."

"Why not?" he asked, sitting down on the bed beside me.

"Because I'm probably out of a job."

"No, they like you. I'm sure they'll understand."

I laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure they will."

"You know what I mean." It was quiet for a minute before he finally brought it up. "So, what do you think about what all Edda said?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, it's scary. I mean, I'd never thought about the world the way she described it. That most murders don't just happen, that there's always an evilness behind it. It's easier to think that people are just mean, not possessed by some unseen force. And the fact that most don't even realize it? That's crazy."

"Yeah, it is. But that's not the part I was talking about."

"Oh." I didn't know if I wanted to talk about the things she's said about me, like it'd somehow make them truer. "I don't know."

I didn't want to think about being sensitive to spirits or more open to that world than most. The fact that I was the one who unknowingly allowed that energy to follow me from the asylum was too much to think about, especially right now, after everything else. It was just too frightening to think about the consequences of being what Edda called a sensitive could entail.