The Unlikely Resident of Room 313

Chapter 40

 "Melody!"

Mom's arms circled my waist before I hit the ground. "Shh, shh, shhh," she murmured in my ear. "You'll draw attention to yourself."

"To hell with the attention!" I screamed, tearing out of her hold so fast, the world blurred around me. Hot tears streaked my face as I dropped to Melody's side. "Melody? Melody? Are you okay?"

Blood smeared the wound on her forehead. "I'm—fine—" she wheezed.

"Easy, easy," I whispered, tears dripping from the tops of my cheeks and onto her freckled skin. Thank God. Thank God she was alive. Thank God she was breathing. "What were you thinking?"

"I—don't know," she confessed. "He was going to hurt you."

"Dammit, Melody."

A silver spirit whipped over our heads and jumped into a group of Playboy bunnies on the lawn directly ahead of us. The lawn to the DTE house where Eric, Roy, and Lana waited. The same house that, years ago, the Dark Man, and my father, murdered Roy.

I'd never felt genuine fear until this moment.

"You need to get inside the house," Mom said, kneeling beside us. "I'll stay here with Melody. Like Olivia said: we've lost the element of surprise. We don't have much time left before he does something even more despicable."

"But—"

She shook her head, her face stricken. "Melody is fine. We'll be right behind you. Your father might already be waiting for you with Lana. Go, Asteria. Please. Finish this."

I yanked her into the tightest hug I could muster. "Be safe. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Staggering to my feet, I hobbled onto the lawn, ready to sprint inside, when the ring of scantily-clad bunnies parted. As it parted, a petite, red-headed bunny knelt in the grass. Black water pours from her bleeding lips. An oil-slick-like cloud hung over her head, dripped onto her in glossy droplets, and she rose.

"What the fuck is going on?" one of the girls shrieked.

The redhead snapped her attention to me, and she grinned. "He's coming for you," she sang. "You have nowhere to hide!"

Wrapping my own protective charms around my hand, I braced for action. "I don't want to hurt you!"

She answered with a sinister cackle—and lunged for the girl on her right, teeth bared. The girls erupted in frantic shrieks of terror, dispersing before the possessed bunny sunk her teeth into them.

"What the fuck. Alyssa!" her friend sobbed. Alyssa snapped her teeth and ticked, ticked, ticked, with disjointed movements straight out of a nightmare.

"Fine!" I said. "I warned you!" Closing my eyes, I reached for the same power that freed me from the Dark Man's illusion and grabbed her throat with both hands, squeezing just enough to trap her, watching as light burst beneath my fingers. It poured through her skin, and like a piece of paper caught by a flame, she folded under my hold, and the oily specter possessing her evaporated.

"What the fuck? What the fuck!" another girl shrieked. Alyssa moaned and then sat up like a puppet whose strings were yanked fast—and vomited dark goo all over the lawn.

Oh, shit! That's new!

"Get out of here," I instructed the group. "Take your friend. Run. Don't stop. Don't look back."

They scramble away immediately—much like most of the block party from Hell. But there were still so many people, and through that unholy tether between us, I felt the Dark Man get closer.