Gridlocked Guesthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1) (17 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

I don't want to write what happened next. I'm going to stall a moment and write about something else. I just can't.

When I fell into that hole with the bear, when that happened, I didn't really finish that story. I mean, I sort of did, I just rushed it a little.

I was down there for two days, dangling from a spear in the ground by my snowsuit. And I loved that bear. I loved him. He was beautiful. And he growled at me, halfheartedly, over those days, but he was beautiful.

I promised I would save him. "My daddy is gonna get me out, and he's gonna get you out and we're gonna be good friends." I told him stories for two days straight.

My body hurt hanging from that spear. At one point, I got so mad I started screaming, and the bear, he screamed with me. We screamed because we were stuck in a hole in the snow.

I know I said it was no big deal, but once my mama found me, she was beside herself. They pulled me out quickly, and as they kissed me and held me, I asked if they'd let him out.
If they'd let out the bear.

My mother looked horrified and said no.

My father looked at the bear and said the best they could do was put it out of its misery.

And I screamed.

And I, that little reckless child, leapt back into the pit with the bear. Determined to protect it from my father, determined to let it out.

I thought we were friends!

And that bear swiped my face with his big fat bear claws. My daddy shot him four times before he finally stopped.

And that's why I've never dated, and why I live in the basement. My face is too broken up to share. This was my very first kiss. That's why I didn't know, I didn't figure it out fast enough, I didn't grasp what he was saying. I was just over the moon, holding hands, and stealing kisses in the night.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Ricky shoved me backwards and he said, "What are you doing! Do you know where Rachel is? The house is on fire."

He shoved me.

He was burning my house.

This was when I finally realized it. He didn't like me, he was burning my house. He turned back and stared at the front door of my guesthouse, my fiery guesthouse. And hit him in the back of the head with a rock.

I immediately ran inside and started screaming. The twins' chandelier was starting to char. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the kitchen sink and pulled the pin. I had foamed the entire chandelier and table and then desperately tried to look with the corner of my eye. I didn't see them.

Had Delilah and Trevor been burned out of the house?

I gasped for air. Was my family gone? My heart was thumping in my ears and I wasn't sure I could take this. Flames were still crawling across the kitchen. I turned my head one more time and tried to look with my peripheral vision. "Delilah?" I whispered.

And then I started to sob as I kept spraying the flames with my little red extinguisher. After another moment, the canister was empty.

Why would he hold my hand like that? Why would he kiss me? He was killing my family!

But while I was trying to extinguish the pain in my heart and the flames in my home, I stopped watching Ricky, and he was descending into the basement again.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Ricky stepped into the basement, staring at my office. His eyes darted back and forth over my desk and my life. Like it was nothing. Then he grabbed the door handle to my bedroom, which I had left locked as always, thankfully.

Could you imagine if he had gotten in there? I would have been horrified.

He opened my bathroom door, nothing interesting in there. Walked past the kitchenette to the final door. There he saw his friends dangling.

His hagridden friends.

My friends.

And he rattled the door, trying desperately to open it. If he had been calmer, he might have realized he could open it, just a few buttons on the wall. Sure, they weren't labeled, but what else would they be for?

Well, one of them did release the gas, so maybe he was grateful he didn't press that particular button. And I was already on my second fire extinguisher, frantically spraying the flames and screaming for my sister, for my brother.

The first time he saw me, he stole my heart.

But this second time, he saw what everyone sees, this disheveled broken woman frantically trying to hold her family together. A woman with a ruined face and a broken heart.

I saw him, and he charged me. His big arms wrapped around me, twisting my arms behind me, hurting me. I waited for him, I didn't fight. I don't have to fight.

"You should stop now. You'll make my daddy mad." I said. I was so hurt.

"You need to get my friends out of the basement."

"Oliver, go get daddy." I stared into his eyes while I said it, staring at the face of Ricky.

I almost wanted to try to kiss him again. His hair was plastered to his pale, frightened face from sweat. He dragged me to the stairs, and I tried to enjoy his rough hands and his angry touches.

Do you think there is still a chance someone will love me? Even though I am broken? Even though my family is a set of ghosts? Is that even possible?

Maybe I should try online dating.

He almost threw me down the stairs, but I stopped him. I've been thrown down these stairs many times by many different people. After the first five times someone throws you down the stairs, you learn a few things.

It's just that, this time was different because he was the only man who tried to rescue me.

Usually at the very first sight of me, they'd crush me with a chair, or stab me with a knife or demand I explain it to them! Explain it!

Who peeled Oliver? Who froze your father? Who hung the twins?

Explain it!

I still can't! I can't explain it. They were hagridden! We are hagridden!

We are tormented.

We are harassed.

We are nightmares.

We are unreasonable.

We are fear.

This is the truth of the matter, but somehow, just somehow, it's not enough. They want more. They think that ghosts and houses have layers that if you unpeeled them just a little, then the truth would be bright and real and reasonable.
Reasonable!
Do you even understand that? Why would it be reasonable? The very thing that peeled a four-year-old boy, and left his skin flopping against him in strips, that is the thing, that is the thing guests think can be reasonably explained?!?!

I've lived here and survived. That's as reasonable as this thing will get. I survive.

And yet, I am tied here, and I think if I ever tried to leave and move on and be, that I would die. I would be hagridden here, or there, and maybe it would come with me, or maybe it wouldn't let me go. But it's not reasonable. I can't explain it. It just is.

And it is a bad thing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Ricky seemed to think that I was the thing that created all of this. Most people do. I keep saying Ben was an accident.

I didn't mean to kill him.

"Let them out."

He pushed me on the stairs; he was both gripping my wrist with anger and shoving me forward. I pressed back against him gently and stepped down the stairs with that calm feeling I get when I know Daddy is going to come. "I can do that if you'd like."

His grip didn't falter. It's funny how a man can go from treating you like a lover to treating you like the enemy.

Real funny.

My heart was heavy despite my lack of concern. I was never going to understand love or men. Or Tiffany! She had two men, John and Beezer, both loving and banging her. Or well, John would have raised that baby at least.

He was a good man.

Didn't she get that?

Tiffany was such a monster. I felt my heart harden towards her.

Mikaela, at least she was a good mother. She brought her phone, she loved her child, she worked hard. She was a good woman. And I liked how her dress sparkled. I had never seen one like that before.

My mind was racing with my heart as we made it to the basement. Once we stepped inside, the door shut behind us and I heard Oliver locking every one of those thirteen locks in rapid succession. Ricky screamed, "How are you doing that!"

I laughed. "I'm not! That's Oliver."

He screamed again, "Let us out!"

I said, "I said I can try to do that if you want. I doubt it will help."

And I turned to the door and pressed the button. This predictable man did exactly what I suspected he would do.

I've done this before.

The door swung open, and he charged in and he kissed her. He touched her body and kissed her, slowly unshackling her wrists.
He loved Rachel.
Her ring was still in his pocket and this reunion was so glorious and beautiful and emotional and sweet, he should have gotten on his knee and asked her.

But I shut the door and sobbed.

Would I ever be kissed again?

Maybe you don't care, maybe you are just sitting there wondering what my daddy is going to do. Maybe you'd rather I write it like this, Ricky got away from the monstrous, hideous woman and kissed his true love. Is that what you are waiting to hear? That I, the horrible, nasty hag, locked them in there. Are you hoping they kill me?

I'm hoping they kill me.

If I die in here will I be stuck with my brothers and my sister? Or will I finally be free?

As soon as the door shut, Ricky screamed and charged it. Rachel started letting each of them out, the whole group suddenly restless and free. They weren't armed, but they were ready as hell.

But so was Daddy.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

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It's hard when we think of the world so binary. Tiffany is either a good woman or a bad one, right?

Nothing between.

Mikaela is either a sweetheart or trashy.

Nervous, lovely Beth deserves her fate or she doesn't.

And me. Maybe you've already decided nobody should love me. You're right. I'm hagridden.

Daddy came down the stairs like he normally does, in a whirling, icy storm. He was so cold. In his soul, his soul was frozen. I could hear Mama, even though she was upstairs. She was scratching the word again. I should check if that fire is out.

But instead, I watched as the room grew cold around them.

Ricky and Rachel embraced perfectly. He held her face against his chest with those beautiful arms of his. Do you think she could hear his heartbeat? I would hope so.

I bet she could smell his sweaty, manly scent, his sweat drops starting to freeze.

It was hard to tear my wet, dripping eyes away from them to look at the rest of them. Mikaela was wrapped tightly into tall, lanky Mike's arms. He was gorgeous too, but he hadn't stolen my heart like Ricky had.

Zane was wrapped around timid Beth, and Jenny and Tiffany stood together, ready to fight. Stupid little Cletus was still bleating between Jenny's' legs. I stared into the little window and Ricky suddenly took a step near me. I shuddered; he was staring into my eyes. His mouth was moving, and I am pretty sure he was saying he wanted to kiss me again. He had dumped her for me. And I couldn't stop sobbing.

He did love me.

And I made the second mistake that I made that evening.

He was just so gorgeous.

And he chose me.

So I opened the door.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

His body crashed into mine as soon as the door opened--he was warm and strong--and I hit the floor before I even knew what he was doing. He was rough, but I didn't mind; life was rough. What else would this be like?

He was a bear. Ravenous and huge, and locked in a hole with me. He would rip off my face.

Suddenly, I was so intimately afraid. Maybe it was his fists cracking into me. Maybe it was the bear. I was sobbing hysterically, I was so afraid. I was little again. I was a girl. A small child, trying to save the big, soft thing that I loved. The only company I had for two long days.