Chained

Six

But at the rate of the thumping, Michael will see it soon enough.

"Are you ready to invite me in?"

My eyes dart back between the steps and Michael before his words register. "I...what?"

"You aren't safe in there," Michael says.

That's true, but I frown. "What do you mean?"

"Hell is in your home."

Somehow I know—I just know—that Michael is the reason this is happening. Even as the thumps get closer, I resist the urge to run outside. "You!" I snarl. "It's all you. You're doing something."

"What could I be doing, Jason Hill?"

I don't know. Nothing makes sense anymore. Sanity has been bleeding out since I met Freddie.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The noises from upstairs are like the heartbeats of hell.

"Do you want this to stop, Jason Hill?"

Yes.

"Nothing is happening," I say firmly.

He tilts his head in a most unnatural way. "Is that what you believe?"

No.

"Yes!"

I slam the door in his face and turn to my death.

There is nothing. No skull man.

Nothing.

I almost drop the candle. My body slumps against the door, unable to comprehend what is happening.

"Belief is a powerful entity, Jason Hill."

The door doesn't muffle his voice. It cuts into my ears, like an ice pick shattering my frozen senses.

"Our beliefs bring life to monsters," Michael continues.

"Shut the hell up."

"Freddie believes that monsters are coming for her. Belief is insidiously infectious. We are innocent at birth, free of preconceived notions. Our parents poison us, our friends poison us and we never are free."

I kick the door. "Save the philosophical shit for the mindless morons who follow you."

"You do not want to hear because it's true. We are blinded to the truth." A slight scratching on the door makes my skin crawl. "Freddie's belief is all that you can see right now."

"I'm giving you five fucking minutes," I say harshly. "Then you'll wish that you had left. And stop knocking on my goddamned door!"

"I never knocked on the door,"

I freeze.

Don't say anything.

"Bullshit," I hissed, almost blowing the candle out. "You can't gaslight me. I heard you."

"Did you?" Again, a faint scratching on the door. "Do you trust everything that you've seen and heard tonight, Jason Hill?"

No.

"Why..." The question dies before I can even properly consider it. "Why do you want Freddie back so much?" I ask another, less sanity shattering question.

"She belongs to us."

"No one belongs to anyone!" I snap.

"Everyone belongs." Soft creaking of the porch indicates that Michael is walking. "You, Jason Hill? You belong to the daytime world, to your mother, to Emily Nolan."

I can't breathe. "How do you know, Emily?"

Michael ignores my question. "That world has a claim on your immortal soul. Freddie's mistake was trying to dig her claws into that soul. You are now caught between the sea and the earth. The longer you allow her to stay in your home, the greater chance you will have to drown."

"Seriously, how does this nonsense win anyone over?" I ask viciously.

The creaking stops. "If you don't wish to belong to the sea, send her back to us."

My anger starts fading. "You have to know that I'm not going to do it."

"Yes," he agrees. "You are a good man. That is why you stopped for Freddie, when all your senses should have warned you away. It's going to damn you."

"Your mind games aren't getting to me," I mumble.

"These aren't my games," Michael says. "This is all her."

"She isn't even here," I snap. "She's gone, okay. She left. Took off."

"She did not." A creak in the door, as if he leaned against it. "You put her in your bathroom. But she's not there anymore."