Pernicious | Kai Parker

Chapter 18

For two months, the stalker didn't appear.

But they knew whoever it was, they were still watching them. Amelia had finished showering one day, and saw a handprint on the mirror, which hadn't been there before. Damon's bourbon bottle was moved around several times from where he'd left it. Bonnie claimed that her clothes had been disorganized.

That's when Amelia started having trouble sleeping. At first, her solution had been to move her bed up against a wall, to limit the spaces were someone could be watching her. But then, she thought, if this person is invisible, they could be anywhere, even when I'm not asleep and vulnerable. So she started holding some sort of weapon in her hand, which had been comforting at first, until she'd accidentally scraped her cheek on a kitchen knife while asleep and had needed to be healed by Damon in the morning.

On one particular night, four months after their arrival to this strange place, Amelia found herself drinking bourbon in the living room, feeling unsafe even in her own room.

"I'm sick of this," she said to herself, feeling herself tearing up. She didn't want to be this afraid, she wanted to know what was going on. "I just want to go home."

A chill ran down her spine at the sudden sensation of someone breathing on her. She flinched, not daring to turn around as someone blew hot air onto the back of her neck. She tried to slowly reach her hand to the nearest object— a cushion— to whack the person with it. She'd teared up, and in her ear, someone laughed. "Crybaby," she heard a male voice say.

She whirled around with the cushion, but it hit nothing. Looking behind the couch, there was no one, and that confirmed that whoever it was, was invisible, somehow.

"We need to do like, a Boundary Spell on the house," Amelia suggested when they went to Bell's the next morning, after another pancake breakfast with Damon putting fangs on the happy face he made with blueberries. "If I siphon from Damon, I think I can do some sort of spell that will keep this person from getting in anymore."

"Maybe it's a ghost that can't be kept away," said Damon as Bonnie plucked up some candles.

"That doesn't make me feel any better," said Amelia, looking at the shopping list. "We should um, go to the fruit aisle, get some strawberries, kiwis, and grapes."

"You know, Amy," said Bonnie teasingly, "when all this started, Damon sucked at making pancakes, but now they're somewhat edible."

She was too nervous to laugh, adn Damon huffed, grabbing a gallon of milk as they passed by the refrigerators. "There's no reason to be Peter Pessimist," said Bonnie, "we have proof we're not alone."

"First of all," said Damon, "don't nickname, that's my thing. Second of all, we don't have proof that it's a person that can help us."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes. "I get what you're doing."

"What am I doing?"

"You refuse to have hope that you'll see Elena again so you don't have to be disappointed."

"I refuse to have hope because there's nothing to hope for," he snapped.

Bonnie stopped the car suddenly. "Pork rinds."

"Ew," said Amelia. "We are not getting that."

"No," she said, pointing at one of the shelves. "There were pork rinds on this shelf— there have been pork rinds here on every shopping trip we've had for the past four months."

There was a sudden melody playing outside, and Amelia instinctively gripped Damon's hand. "What the fuck is that?" she asked.

The three quickly made their way outside, seeing the carousel outside was spinning, the music turned on. "Hear that, Damon?" said Bonnie. "That's what hope sounds like."