The cabin walls seemed to moan. Was it her imagination, or had the room’s temperature dropped a few degrees? She folded her arms around herself and looked around. Was Chan here? She shouldn’t be afraid of him if he was. But the tickle of unease in the pit of her stomach didn’t go away. What did her cousin want with her? Was it about Chase?
She recalled Chase telling her he’d been looking for someone. Had he been lying?
All at once, the skin at the base of her neck prickled. She turned her head, half expecting to see someone standing there, staring at her.
The room was empty. Or at least empty of anyone she could see.
“Is it you, Chan?” she whispered.
Only silence answered her. Picking up her phone, she considered calling Steve, but she’d called earlier and he said he had patients and he’d call her as soon as he had a few minutes. Thoughts of Jessie being with him did a lap around her already antsy mood. Trusting Steve was one thing, trusting Jessie was another. Her head throbbed harder.
When another chill ran down her spine, she stood up and decided to go take a warm shower. She moved to the bathroom, started the water, and stripped off her clothes. The sound of the shower seemed to echo, and for some reason she remembered the falls. She looked at the shower curtain. Steam billowed out. She set a towel on the counter. Rubbing her temple, she glanced up in the mirror and saw her naked reflection. Then she saw him.
“Shit! Get out of here, Chan!” Being scared of her dead cousin she maybe could have handled; being scared and naked was too much. She grabbed the towel and swung around to face him. She expected him to be gone, but he wasn’t. He stood there in puff of steam.
“Look behind you,” he said.
“Get out of here,” she repeated, still adjusting her towel and fighting the pain.
“Look behind you,” he said again, and now he was the one who looked afraid.
She glanced over her shoulder, breath held, not knowing what she would see. Nothing stood behind her, just her reflection, and the reflection of her dead cousin, staring at her with sad eyes.
She turned and faced him again, and slight movement sent her world spinning. She waited for it to stop. “Look at what?” she managed to ask, gripping the counter for fear she’d fall.
He raised his arm and pointed behind her. She glanced back again and again saw nothing. But then, in the midst of the fog, Chan’s image faded.
She slowly turned her head to the front again. He was gone.
Look behind you. His words echoed in her head. Do it!
Shaking on the inside, she didn’t know which was worse. Seeing him, or hearing him in her head.
Still, she did as he requested and looked over her shoulder again. “What am I supposed to see?” she asked, her words seeming to be sucked up by the steam. The pain in her head seemed to spread to her shoulders.
“What am I supposed to see?” she said again, her patience thin.
Only a deadly silence answered. She couldn’t hear the water running anymore. She couldn’t hear herself breathe.
She blinked and was just about to turn around when an arrow was drawn in the steamed-up mirror. Pointing to her reflection. She followed the arrow. And she saw it.
“Shit!” She dropped the towel. All dread of ghosts, dread of being naked in front of ghosts, vanished. A different kind of fear built in her chest.
Her heart raced and simultaneously the pain in her head and shoulders pounded harder. Standing naked in the foggy bathroom, she heard Kevin’s words echo in her head. They said he got sicker and then he got a weird rash on his back and then he died. Just died.
Della stared at the splotchy red markings starting at the back of her neck and running down her spine. They kind of looked like feathers.
Reality set in. She had the same thing Chan had. She had the same thing that killed him.
The bathroom door opened. She expected Kylie or Miranda.
She reached to get her towel. Using all her energy, she stood, and her head swam, black dots appeared in her vision, but she focused on the door. Her breath caught when she realized she’d been wrong. It wasn’t Kylie or Miranda.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter Thirty-six
“You lied,” Della accused, eyeing Chase, shocked he was in her bathroom. “You were never looking for anyone.”
“I was,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
She had to work to focus around the pain. “You knew Chan, my cousin.”
“Yeah.” His gaze moved over her.
Realizing she was only wearing a towel, she said, “Leave.”
“I tried to. Couldn’t do it. A conscience is a terrible thing to acquire. Like it or not, you and I are going to be bonded.”
“Bonded?” She shook her head, only to realize that any kind of movement made the pain worse.
His gaze swept over her towel-covered body. “It could be worse. You could be ugly.”
“Get out of my bathroom!”
He walked out, but didn’t shut the door. She slumped against the counter, dizzy again. The fog in the bathroom seemed to seep into her mind. Had he really been here? Had she just imagined him? Had she imagined Chan and the rash, too?
“Here.” The panty perv, real, not imagined, walked back in as if he had every right to be in her bathroom. He had some of her clothes in one hand, her phone in the other.
He set the clothes on the counter. “Get dressed.”
“Get out!” A chill, this one coming from inside her, raced down her spine. Her insides trembled. Her head throbbed.
“Get dressed or your shape-shifter friend is going to be pissed when he sees us together and you’re naked. Not that he won’t be pissed anyhow.” He said the second part almost to himself. “But it’s too late to try and find someone else.”
“What?” she asked, not understanding.
“Get dressed.”
“With you standing there? Not likely!” Her voice trembled and she had to clench her jaw to stop it.
He gave her his back. “Get your clothes on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Time for what?” She spit the question out between gritted teeth. An odd kind of déjà vu hit. She remembered feeling this way once before. The chills. The pain.
Chan had been with her.
Staring at Chase’s back, she dropped her towel and reached for her clothes. In the mirror she saw him turn around.
His gaze swept up her naked body.
She growled. His focus went to the mirror, to her eyes.
“Sorry. I thought you were dressed.”