Share
Picture Perfect
Dalton
The power is still out an hour later. I lean my weight against the window sill, rain seeping through the screen as I take a drag from my cigarette and look at the wind-beaten marsh beyond the boundary of the backyard. The storm is finally moving away, the dark clouds funneling in the distance as the storm nears the Gulf. What little moonlight there is to be had illuminates the room in pale silver.
Dressed in only my sweatpants, the cool, stormy air brushes over my naked chest as I keep my eyes on the cemetery in the distance.
Hearing Layla’s anguished screams for help earlier tonight rocked me to my core, and there’s nothing I can do to ease her fear now. No, this has gone too far. This place has already sunk its teeth into her flesh, and there’s no escape now--for either of us.
Another drag of my cigarette clears my head enough to break out of the sex-fueled haze I’ve been languishing in for
Related chapters
Whispers of the Devil Something’s Not Right
LaylaMonday morning hits me like a ton of bricks. The sun is shining hot and heavy when I roll out of bed at nearly 10:00, blinking rapidly to adjust to the startling glare. I slept like the dead. No dreams fractured my mind last night but…I sit on the edge of the bed, dressed in a men’s shirt that smells like Dalton.My throat bobs as I swallow against the sudden tightening there. A dull ache spreads up my inner thighs, and a bite mark I know is on my left breast sings with awakening pain.Memories of last night crawl back to the forefront of my mind while I sit in the hot sun. Last night, a storm of epic proportions rolled over the property, leaving destruction in its wake. I rise from bed and walk to the window, seeing Curtis on the back lawn cleaning up branches and debris.Deep puddles glisten in the sunlight–and beyond the yard?The marsh is lost beneath a thick layer of fog, l
Whispers of the Devil Touch
LaylaBailey pulls me upright. My legs shake as she guides me to a dusty couch and sits me down, her hands on either side of my face. “God, you’re covered in glass–”“I’m fine,” I choke out, but tears sting my eyes as she lovingly reaches up to pick shards of glass from my hair, collecting them in her open palm.“What happened?”“A–a bird–” I swallow the words, my throat burning over each syllable. My throat aches and my skin burns where the doctor licked my neck.Bile rises in my throat at the memory, heightened by the taste of his blood lingering in my mouth. I press my hands to my lips, gagging. Bailey starts, looking wildly around for something for me to throw up in before gripping me hard and dragging me to the small half-bathroom just off the foyer where I throw up in the toilet.A few minutes later, I’m sitting at the ki
Whispers of the Devil Playing Games
DaltonCold water cascades from my hands. The water flows down the sink in crimson ribbons.Out the kitchen window, night has fallen. Lightning flashes in the distance, but tonight’s storm passes the house without much drama. Rain showers over the landscaped backyard in gentle sheets of silver illuminated by the porch light.I shake my wet hands in the sink, reaching for a towel. My brushes are laid out on the counter, all of them clean and glistening in the light coming from a lamp near the kitchen table.I gather my brushes and turn, the glint of metal catching my eye.A butcher knife rests in the dish rack, freshly sharpened.It’s the only thing in the dish rack. Both Bailey and Layla keep the kitchen spotless and would have noticed a knife being left out. I reach for it and pull it off the rack just as Layla walks into the kitchen.Dressed in pale blue scrubs with her hair pu
Whispers of the Devil The House
LaylaThere isn’t much that can scare me. Maybe that’s why I became a nurse. Maybe that’s why I didn’t balk at the idea of spending a summer in an entirely creepy, and no doubt haunted, French Colonial style mansion smack dab in the center of a swamp, cypress lined property in Hahnville, Louisiana. I’ve seen scarier places. I’ve walked the haunted halls of hospitals all over the country during my four years of being a travel nurse. I’ve seen things in emergency rooms that would make someone’s nightmares look and sound like child's play. This place doesn’t scare me. Although, maybe it should. Mom’s voice rattles in my ear as she pleads, “Layla, seriously, you can turn around and come home!”“I already signed the paperwork,” I say with a sigh, narrowing my eyes at the gargantuan structure looming in the distant haze of summer. Overhead, cypress trees hang with vines that dust the top of my Toyota 4-Runner, the only major purchase I’ve ever made in my life. Before this moment, I’d b
Whispers of the Devil Aunt Penny
LaylaAunt Penny could be mistaken for a child from a distance. The top of her silver hair barely reaches my sternum as she rests in her bed, and I’m not a tall woman, by any means. She’s definitely not the withered old crone I expected, not with her dainty, childlike features and huge, blue eyes. I’ve never even seen a picture of her before. In truth, I could count on one hand the number of times her name had been brought up in conversation. I’m not sure what I imagined her to look like. All I had to go off were stories about this place and this specific family line. But her brow isn’t perpetually pinched. Her nose isn’t long and gnarled and covered with warts. Her fingernails can’t scratch my eyes out, and I doubt she had a cauldron hidden somewhere in the house where she boiled potions. She doesn’t look like the witch my family made her out to be. It makes me sad, honestly, seeing her lying motionless in the massive four-poster bed. It swallows her tiny body whole, making her l
Whispers of the Devil Haunted
LaylaBailey dumps an assortment of pastries on a serving platter in the humid, sun drenched kitchen. I lean on the counter and take a sip of my iced latte, praying the caffeine will hit my system and thaw the numbness still gripping my body. Whatever happened earlier this morning still has me in somewhat of a trance. I can’t shake the feeling I hadn’t been alone in that upstairs hallway, and especially that I hadn’t been alone in my room. “You’re holding that coffee like it’s a weapon.” Bailey giggles, rolling her eyes as she picks up the platter and sets it on the kitchen table. “Are you okay?”“I didn’t sleep well at all,” I admit, blinking into the unforgiving sunlight. God, it’s hot. It’s not even 8:00 in the morning. and the entire room is already suffocating with heat. I press the plastic cup to my temple and sigh with relief. Bailey watches me curiously for a moment then shrugs. “You should go get some rest, then. You’re the night nurse, remember? You should really be getti
Whispers of the Devil A Figure
LaylaAunt Penny stares ahead, per usual, looking at everything and nothing all at once. I turn a page in the book I’ve been reading aloud to her the past four nights. She recently started a new blood pressure medication that’s supposed to make her feel drowsy, but so far, it’s having the opposite effect. The old woman has been staring into space until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning the past couple of nights, and I’m running out of ways to keep myself busy. “Don’t!” I say in an exaggerated tone, lifting my voice to imitate the dainty, elegant and high-bred young debutant, the book's heroine. “Please! You know we cannot go any further, Randall. You’ll ruin me!”I swear Aunt Penny’s mouth lifts into a ghost of a smile, her eyes softening and looking far more alive than they had only moments ago. I drop my voice as low as it can go and continue, “You called me a rake once, Juliette…. It’s high time I showed you just how rakish I can be….” I quickly scan the rest of the page and glance up
Whispers of the Devil Bump in the Night
Layla“Have you ever lost your mind entirely before, Curtis?” Curtis, who is currently fighting to get a chainsaw back in working order, looks up at me with a pinched expression. “I don’t believe so, Miss Layla. But you look like you’re fixin’ to lose yours, I reckon.”Well, he’s not wrong. I run my hand over my face, then through my hair, peering at the old handyman from my perch on the back porch. The overcast day is a welcome relief from the heat, and the choked tree line in the distance looks remarkably innocent compared to last night during the storm. “You need sleep,” he says in a fatherly tone that forces my gaze back to his face. “You look like you’ve been dragged to hell, and even hell didn’t want ya and sent you packin’.”“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I tease, rolling my eyes. “You’re a real southern gentleman, Curtis.”He waves me off with one of his huge, calloused hands. Curtis is average height and portly, but his strength is truly incredible. H
Latest chapter
- Whispers of the Devil Playing Games
- Whispers of the Devil Touch
- Whispers of the Devil Something’s Not Right
- Whispers of the Devil Picture Perfect
- Whispers of the Devil Good Girl
- Whispers of the Devil Powerless
- Whispers of the Devil Followed
- Whispers of the Devil Apparition
- Whispers of the Devil She’s Mine
