Ethan said nothing as he bolted up from his chair. He left his phone on the table as he moved from the kitchen into the small sitting room and sat down on the loveseat.
"Ethan?" I asked.
He just shook his head. I assumed he wanted to be left alone for a bit. I let him be.
I glanced at Polly. She arched her eyebrows back at me. I knew we were both thinking the same thing: would Tory follow in his master's footsteps and disappear? Or would he actually show up for his partner when he needed him?
All we could now do was wait.
The phone on the table began to buzz, pinging loudly as message after message flooded in. I could see from the lock screen that they were all from Tory. But Ethan didn't budge, so Polly switched the phone to silent so the vibration was only a dull hum.
"I need more wine," Polly said as she got up from the table and went to the fridge. She shook the bottle at me as a wordless offer, but I shook my head. No more booze for me. I had learned my lesson.
As Polly struggled with Ethan's cheap corkscrew, I turned back to Ethan. I felt like I needed to watch over him.
He didn't move at all, except for the shiver that shook through his shoulders now and then. He looked even paler than usual, which was saying something. Honestly, though, I was proud of him. Jealous, too. He had just done what I never had the guts to do with Luc.
Stand up for myself.
The phone on the table went quiet. The messages had stopped.
Had Tory given up, then?
Ethan slumped back into the loveseat. He pulled one of the afghans off the back of the couch and around his shoulders, cocooning himself. "Could you pour me a glass of that, Polly?" Ethan said, his usuall low voice pitched oddly high.
Polly paused, newly freed cork in hand. "Sure."
"Ethan..." I tried again.
"What did I expect?" Ethan mumbled, his voice so quiet that I was unsure he was talking to me or to himself. "What did I expect him to do? This is what he's always done."
"Don't beat yourself up," I said as I got out of my chair and went to sit on the arm of the loveseat. "You hoped he'd do what you've wanted him to do all along... Make you a priority. And you shouldn't feel bad about that."
Ethan finally turned to look at me. His bangs were in his face again, but I could see his glittering silver eyes behind them. "I guess you'd know," he said, ending with a weak laugh.
I returned it with a humorless laugh of my own. "Yeah, I guess I would."
A door slammed on the other side of the house.
Ethan leapt off the loveseat, dropping the afghan on the ground. I nearly fell off the arm, but managed to scramble to my feet just in time.
What the—
"Oma?" he called.
There was no reply but the thunderous approach of footsteps. Then Tory burst around the corner, his eyes wild, his hair mussed. He did a quick glance around the room before honing in on Ethan. He rushed over and pulled him into his arms.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Tory rambled. "I would've come back as soon as I could, I would've, but Luc entrusted me to look after Rachel only when I got there she was gone, gone, fucking gone and Luc is going to kill me and I'm freaking o—"
He sputtered then went quiet. Slowly, his eyes slid up to meet mine. His face fell as he realized that I was there, standing right in behind Ethan.
"Rachel..." he gasped, pushing back from Ethan. "Rachel, what the fuck are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the shop—"
"You mean trapped in my cage?" I snapped back, crossing my arms. "Sorry, I don't take being imprisoned very well..."
"It was for your own safety!" Tory said. "Luc told you that. He's worried about you. How did you even get out? Luc had that place—"
"About that," Polly said, her voice carrying easily across the small room. She had two glasses of wine in her hands. She offered Ethan's glass to Tory.
"Huh?" Tory said. He looked surprised to see Polly, too. "What're you doing here?"
"You think I was just gonna leave Rachel on her own?" she replied, rescinding the glass. "She needs help and your boy just dipped."
"Luc is trying to help," Tory snapped. The puppy was very protective of his master. "He was trying to protect her! Did something else happen?"
"Maybe you should sit down," Ethan said, placing his hand on his shoulder. "We have lots to talk about."
An hour and another bottle of wine later, Tory had been briefed on the events of the last few days. He was more confused than us; he didn't understand how anything could have gotten past Luc's barrier, even after we explained about the "hole" in my arm.
But what shocked him the most was the news that we had broken up.
"He never said anything," Tory said, sounding more disappointed that Luc hadn't confided in him than upset over the end of our relationship. "But that definitely explains his mood."
My heart twinged. There were still a lot of confusing feelings bouncing around in there. Hearing Luc's name over and over... Every time it was like a sharp jab just under my ribs, stabbing again and again.
But, at the same time, knowing that he was just as affected by the breakup was strangely... comforting.
"So, this is why we needed your help," Ethan said. "Because without him, we don't know what to do. We don't even know where to start. And you know more about this than we do."
"That's not hard," Tory huffed.
Ethan gave him a sharp look.
Tory shrank back, then threw his hands in the air. "What do you think I'll be able to do? It's not like I know how to do exorcisms."
Ethan released a big sigh. "Well, do you know anyone who could help?"
"Yeah, of course. Luc."
"Besides him," I said, wincing at his name again.
"Not really," Tory shrugged. "Unless you're thinking of asking Ethan's oma, and I don't think she's, uh, accepting any more guests. Seriously, though, Luc's our best bet."
"Yeah, well, he's not exactly answering our calls," Polly sneered. Her speech was starting to slur. She was nearing her limit on the wine.
"Mine neither," Tory admitted. "He said he wanted to be left alone to do his research. He said I should only contact him for emergencies..."
"Well, how is he supposed to help us," Polly began to rant, "if the bastard can't be bothered to even pick up his ph—"
I perked up. "Wait." I turned to Tory. "Me going missing would be considered an emergency, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah," Tory said, sinking back into his seat. He seemed to deflate. "Thank god, I found you. Otherwise he would've killed me."
"Well," I said. "What if you told him I did go missing? What would he do?"
"Kill me," Tory said again, straight faced.
I rolled my eyes. "Be serious. What would he actually do?"
"Well, he'd come back to look for you," Tory said, like it was obvious. Then he paused to think. "And then, after he found you, he'd kill me."
"Well, then, I think I know what you need to do," I said. "Call him. Tell him."
"Rach," Polly interrupted, putting her drained wine glass on the table. "Don't tell me you're considering this... What do you think he's going to do? As soon as he sees you, he's gonna throw you right back in that cage!"
"Not if he doesn't see me coming. He doesn't know I'm not actually missing... If we can surprise him, maybe we'll at least have a moment to try and talk to him first."
Ethan gave me a strange look. "What, you want to ambush him?" he said. "He's a psychic..."
"No, she's onto something," Tory said.
I blinked at him, taken aback. A lot of unbelievable things had happened to me, but Tory readily agreeing with me was one I never expected.
Tory played with his bottom lip as he stared off into space. "Rachel's possession might actually work in our favour. When you take a spirit into your body, it overlays spiritual signatures and makes it hard to differentiate them." He laid his hands out flat, laying one on top of the other. "Trying to read two spirits as one, he'd only get confusing results."
"Perfect!" I said, almost excited. "We surprise him, and get some actual information out of him. And maybe he'll know out how to get this... thing... out of me."
The presence inside me twitched.
"And what if he runs again?" Polly said, taking a swig directly from the bottle.
"I can help with that," Tory offered. "Luc's taught me a little bit about how his gold barriers work. I could probably reverse it—trap all of us inside once we walk through. It'd hold for a little while."
"You'd... You'd be willing to do that? Wouldn't Luc...?"
Tory leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "The way I see it, either Luc kills me for helping you, or Ethan kills me for helping Luc. And at least if I'm with Ethan, I'll die happy." He tilted his head back, smiling at Ethan upside-down. Ethan's face went immediately red, but he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from quirking up.
He was such a sucker. Just like me.
"So what are we waiting for?" Polly slurred, clearly drunk now. "Call him!"
Ethan stepped in. "Not now. We're not going running out into the middle of the night. I have to stay with my oma, Rachel is still recovering, and you... Well, you're drunk as hell. We'll revisit this in the morning."
Polly looked annoyed. Her cheeks were flushed so red that they almost matched her hair. "I dunno, can all this—" she gestured to my stomach, as if the thing inside me was some kind of unwelcome child, "—just, like, wait?"
"Well, it's not like you're in any state to do anything right now," Tory muttered under his breath. Then he leaned over until he was eye level with my stomach, as if he were talking to my non-existent baby. "Are you planning on going anywhere?" Tory shouted at my navel.
But, to my surprise, the presence inside me recoiled. It seemed to be genuinely afraid of Tory. Something about that made me feel better—like it wouldn't do anything funny while he was around. "I think they're sitting tight for now."
"And you'll be okay?" Ethan asked me. "For now?"
I looked around the room. Each of our faces wore the strain of the past few days. Dark circles hung under each of our eyes. And, honestly, the idea of crawling under the covers, somewhere warm and quiet, sounded wonderful righ tnow.
"One more night shouldn't hurt," I said. "Right?"
Polly didn't reply; she reached for the bottle, ready to drain the last dregs, but Ethan snatched it away.
"Bedtime," he said firmly.
Polly scowled.
🔮
What's Luc is going to do when he's told Rachel has gone missing?
Trivia: I really enjoy writing drunk Polly. 😂