Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,2

figured…maybe it was worth the risk.”

“And was it?”

I shrug, looking down at my hands, at the chipped dusky blue nail polish. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Did you get paid?”

“We did,” I tell her, meeting her eyes. “But I don’t feel good about it.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we did what Harry asked. We went into the house, though it wasn’t exactly how we thought it was going to go down. He wasn’t even there, his weird stepson was there to show us around, like he was giving us a tour. Time just…flew by. And by the end of it, we hadn’t talked to her. We hadn’t talked to anyone.”

“So you feel like you don’t deserve the money, is what you’re saying.”

“Yeah.”

She crosses and uncrosses her ankles again, leaning back in her chair to study me. “Do you want to talk about what you saw in there?”

“What makes you think I saw something?”

“Did you?”

I close my eyes for a moment, quickly going over what happened in my head on Halloween night. There was Dex, my sister Ada, and her boyfriend Jay. We were all in Halloween costumes. Harry’s stepson, Atlas Poe, met us outside the house and brought me and Dex inside, while Ada and Jay waited in the front yard.

I clear my throat. “The house had some crazy fucking vibes, that’s for sure. It was so weird inside, dark, bigger than it should have been. Like a chasm. Like it would never stop, like it led to somewhere…deeper.” I shake the feeling out of my head. “Dex said he saw a woman, a ghost, and specifically heard a woman talking to him in his head. I believe him, of course, but I didn’t see or hear her.”

“That wasn’t the dead wife?”

“No, I don’t think so. Atlas said it was someone else. Anyway, we explored the floors and honestly other than the oppressive, sketchy nature of the place, I didn’t see anything until the end. Until I saw a river of blood flowing out from under a locked bathroom door, before it retreated. The lights suddenly went on and, well, then I saw things.”

“Things?”

“People. Dead people. Ghosts. Whatever. And then they disappeared and that was that. We left.”

A tiny smile lifts the corner of her mouth. “You say that all so simply.”

“It was surprisingly simple.”

She leans forward, her elbows on her knees. “Perry. For as long as you’ve been coming here, you’ve been very straightforward about what you’ve seen. You’ve also been very straightforward about how your gift, your ability, has made you feel. You’ve told me you’ve seen ghosts throughout the years, even after leaving the show. You’ve also told me that you don’t tell your husband that you do.”

“It’s just not a big deal. I’m used to it. But he’s protective of me and I don’t want him to worry.”

“I know that. Which is why I’m a little concerned about how flippant you’re being about the whole ordeal. You just willingly stepped back into a part of your life you were more than happy to leave behind. I know money is a huge part of it, but this isn’t something to be taken lightly. This is the bigger change here, bigger than getting the money, than wanting to sell your apartment. You need to come to terms with that.”

I think that over, inspecting my cuticles now. My heartbeat has picked up the pace and I can feel it pulsing against the anchor tattoo on my wrist.

“I don’t want to come to terms with it,” I tell her quietly.

She nods slowly, pausing. “How did it make you feel? When you agreed to do this, when you went into the house and saw the things you’ve been trying to hide from?”

“Scared,” I admit. “Of course I was scared. But I think I was more terrified at the idea of doing it than actually doing it. I was afraid that it could ruin us. You know, there was so much pain after my mother died, after Dex um, well...I was so afraid that doing that, inviting the dead to communicate, to be seen, that it would pull us back into that pain.” I exhale, my breath shaking. “But when I went inside, it was like the fear was gone. Well, okay, the fear was still there. But it had changed into something thrilling, I guess you could say.”

“A positive emotion?”

I smile faintly. “I think so. I felt both scared and comfortable? Like I was doing something I knew how to do,