“Will you stop?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Show yourself, witch, so I can fuck and murder you, too.”

  I gasped.

  He laughed.

  I stared at him in disbelief. Who was this man?

  “Isabella? I need to know, quickly,” Erica urged.

  “No, Erica. Don’t let us out.” I didn’t want him to hurt anyone else.

  “Yes, Erica. Let us out!” Holden shouted.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone else.”

  “Then I only get to hurt you,” he said with a shrug.

  “So be it,” I replied, defiantly.

  “Remember all I said, Isabella. I’ll do what I can from out here,” Erica’s voice called out. “If I can help, I’ll be back on an anniversary of today. Hopefully the next one.”

  “Thank you, Erica,” I whispered. “Thank you very much.”

  He was leaning over me, looking at me curiously.

  I reached for his face with my trembling hand and touched his mouth with my fingertips.

  His eyes stayed coldly on my face. There was no love there. There was no warmth there. It was as if he wasn’t even my Holden hovering over me, until he leaned into my touch.

  He felt like my Holden. The feel of his mouth, the bit of stubble from the five o’clock shadow. He was wearing a checked dark button-down I’d bought for him. His wide gold wedding band was on his finger. This was my husband leaning into my touch and looking directly into my soul with those eyes. He kissed the pad of my thumb softly. I couldn’t reconcile him between who he was with me and who he’d been the night I met him. Even that night, even in that dark cloak with no face or voice, he was somehow my Holden. But this person? This man that had struck me and said those things?

  “Holden, babe. Please stop this. You’re better than this. You’re more than this.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said and then he reached down and grabbed for my hips and it took just a second for me to realize he was working the fly of my jeans undone.

  I gulped and grabbed for his wrist to wrench it away.

  He slapped my face, and I froze as much from the pain as from the shock of it. He’d struck me, open palm. My cheek was ringing from the slap.

  His voice went low and menacing. “Don’t try to stop me. You won’t stop me. Let yourself have a minute of pleasure before I murder you, if you like. We both know how much pleasure I can give you. How much you fucking love it.”

  “D-don’t. Don’t do this.”

  His face got closer to me. He looked directly into my eyes.

  This was agony. Pure agony.

  “Are you my wife?”

  “You know that I am.”

  “Then this is my right.”

  He yanked my jeans down to my ankles and then my underwear went down, too. That misty fog was sitting thick and heavy in the air. My lip trembled.

  What could I do? I couldn’t figure out what to do or say to get through to him. This wasn’t my husband. This was a cursed monster without Holden’s personality, without his warmth and devotion. He had urges, though. Maybe if I helped him feel, if I showed him my love, it’d get through to him.

  “There’s a tampon in the way,” I whispered. I reached between my legs to find the string. He found it first and tugged it out and tossed it.

  “I’m bleeding, because they took him, our baby, to keep him safe during this.”

  My words had no effect as evidenced by the way he went for his own fly and worked it undone as if I’d said nothing.

  “Kiss me, Holden,” I pleaded. “Hold me?”

  His head descended and he had an evil sneer on his face as it came slowly toward me.

  The kiss was punishing. The kiss was brutality. And this wasn’t just because my mouth was swollen from the backhanding, my cheek still feeling the slap. It was also because he meant to hurt me with the kiss.

  His fingers were tangled roughly in my hair as his mouth plundered mine. And then, down in the dirt behind that tulip tree stump, his cock nudged its way inside me. The bleeding made it easy for him to get inside, because there was no arousal from my end helping with that.

  He grunted when he got fully inside. “You always feel so fucking good. Even that first time I made you bleed, that first time when I rammed into you and you fit me like a tailor sewed your cunt just for me.”

  Tears filled my eyes and leaked out the outer corners. He kissed my cheekbone, catching one, licking it.

  “Your tears taste beautiful, Isabella. I could live on them. Dig your nails into my back. Squeeze your walls tight so you can milk my cock.”

  I let out a sob. “Oh Holden. Please be in there. Please don’t be gone.”

  He laughed.

  I closed my eyes.

  His pace increased. “Should I rub your tiny pearl and make you scream pleasure for me one last time, little kitty cat?”

  I shook my head in the negative.

  He ignored me and got his fingers between us as he continued to thrust into me with a brutal and relentless rhythm as he twisted my clit.

  “Come for me, Isabella. Come one more time before I steal your breath from you. I want to hear you whimper my name once more.”

  “Please, Holden. You don’t have to be this. You don’t have to---”

  “Not that kind of whimper. And yes…yes, I do. This is all I am. This is it. Till death do us part, right? Your death is approaching. Give me one last whimper.”

  I grabbed his face with both hands. “I’m not giving up on you. I know how you can be. I know how much you love me. I know how much you want a family. We’re a family, Holden. We can find a way to fix this. We have our beautiful little farm, our home that you built with your hands for us. It’s a place we’ve filled with love.”

  “And lies and secrets and memory of rape,” he said. “Want to see what we’ve built? Let’s see if it’s there. Maybe I’ll rape you there one more time before I pull a blade across that delicate neck.”

  He pulled out of me and put it away, neither of us ‘finishing’ and acting like he couldn’t be bothered to care. And then he grabbed my jacket hood and used it to drag me along.

  I was roughly pulled across rough and jagged terrain that ripped my skin. I kicked and tried to stop him out of pure reflex, and this first had the effect of me kicking off my pants and underwear and then the subsequent result of him pulling the jacket up over my head in his efforts to drag me along. Once my head and arms were free of the coat, I tried to scramble to run the other way, but he swiftly caught me by the hair and then used the length of my hair to pull me along.

  I tripped, realizing my panties were still around one ankle, but he didn’t let go and that meant I was being dragged. By my hair. He had a machete, from where I didn’t know, and he used it to cut a path through the thick brush.

  Though he dragged me through the woods by my hair, my battered body protesting with every step he took, I still wasn’t ready to give up hope.

  He finally stopped, then loomed over me.

  “Holden,” I called out hoarsely. His eyes met mine as he raised the machete. And the cold look in them? Hope vanished.

  “I love you,” I whispered. “Even if you do this, I still will.”

  “Look.” He gestured with his machete toward the cabin.

  That old cabin stood there in the dark near the creek. Not the house he’d built lovingly for us, for our future kids. It was that old cabin instead.

  “Do you want to go inside for old time’s sake?” he asked.

  “You know I don’t,” I replied. “You promised me I’d never have to step foot in there again.”

  “Fine,” he said. The webbing cleared from around us. It just moved away, as if magically.

  Magically?

  Was something about to change? Were the witches doing something that would change him, take away this monster and turn him back to the man I’d married?

  I silently pleaded, waiting for things to shift as I watched the fog shrink further and further away until I couldn’t see it anymore. Maybe Erica didn’t have to wait until next Halloween. Maybe she found an answer.

  I looked up at his face.

  His arm went up high and the machete sliced through the air as it came down. I almost didn’t believe it. The look in his eyes did not change. There was not even a flinch from him as the blade cut into me. No regret. No remorse. No love.

  I felt the wetness of my blood an instant before the pain kicked in. I reached toward my throat, but my hand didn’t get there. And the pain didn’t kick fully in, because blackness settled over me before it could.

  9 – Now: Deja Vu

  I was sitting on the ground under the tulip tree, a blossom in my hand. I blinked in confusion as I looked up at the tree. It was dusk and the sun had shrunk over the horizon to just a sliver. I frowned and took stock.

  How did I get here? When?

  I was in the clothes I’d worn, all of them, even my jacket. My face didn’t feel hurt. My scalp wasn’t screaming with pain from my hair being used to haul me through the woods. My throat wasn’t bleeding. I was under the tulip tree. It wasn’t gone. It stood tall, filled with gorgeous purple and white blossoms. There was a pumpkin patch with too many pumpkins to count near my feet.

  Holden hadn’t killed me? I wasn’t dead? I was sure he’d killed me. I was sure my handsome, loving, doting husband had first hit me and then forced himself on me in the dirt, dragged me half naked by my hair to the valley and slashed my throat with a machete. But, here I was. Was I dreaming now? Had I dreamt it then?

  “Archie!” I exclaimed, realizing the kitten was head-butting my arm. I picked him up and cuddled him. “What’s happening here, Archie?”

  He purred and rubbed his head on me.

  Darkness moved in quickly. Too quickly. And then the foggy tendrils were back. Archie struggled in my arms, so I set him down. He ran off, as if afraid.

  I looked up and saw the moon was inexplicably full and high. A figure moved into the spotlight view under it. Holden.

  I frowned.

  He was running toward me and I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what it meant until he got to me, a crowbar in his hand and he immediately swung it like a tennis racquet, so it clipped me directly across the side of my head, knocking me into blackness.

  ***

  Dust filled my nose and my throat. Mustiness hung heavily in the air. And I smelled something burning. I sat up. My face hurt. Bad. My eye felt like it had swollen out past the tip of my nose and my left eye tooth was broken, jagged. I was in the loft of that cabin and my husband was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands steepled in front of his chin in that way that he had when he was thoughtfully pondering something.

  I jackknifed up and immediately realized I was naked. I covered my chest with my hands. The space was lit with a small lantern. The lantern that he’d used the night we met. This space looked exactly like it had that night.

  “I thought you killed me again.”

  “You were merely unconscious.”

  “But you did kill me though?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “But, I’m here.” I saw my flannel shirt off to the side, so I reached for it and used it like a blanket to cover my chest.

  “Yes. You’re here.”

  My eyes moved about the space with distaste. “In a place you promised I’d never ever have to go again.”

  “Mm hm.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek. Just one. A broken promise. The first one he’d ever broken. It hurt. So much.

  “And what now?” I asked, not bothering to dash it away.

  He watched the tear drip off my chin and fall.

  “I get what I need from you again.”

  “Again?”

  He nodded, eyes staring off in the distance. “I need to kill, Isabella. And as you fucking let them trap me here with no one to kill but you, it’ll be you.” The anger from his face cleared and he rubbed his thumb along his lower lip, looking back at my face.

  I stared for a long moment. He sat, regarding me emotionlessly.

  “If there were others to kill, you’d have spared me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Is that why you killed the ones who had wronged you first? You were trying to avoid the urge to kill and couldn’t avoid it, so you went after those you hated first, to give the innocents more time to---”

  “Don’t overanalyze it. There’s no point.”

  “Why Mr. Hood? You didn’t kill him, but you tried.”

  “He’s a descendent of the man who crookedly foreclosed on my grandfather’s farm so he could take it over himself. The land was split up and included this land.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “You killed me, Holden. Me.”

  “I did.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. I’m here.”

  “Mm hm.”

  “How?”

  “My guess? That cunt witch did something. That loop I was in before we met, we’re both there. But last time, I was alone with my rage and unable to inflict it on anyone. This time, I’ve got you to hurt.”

  “Why am I naked?”

  “Figured I’d do something productive waiting for you to wake up. Got your clothes outta the way.”

  “You don’t have to hurt me again if you try not to. We could try to just wait it out. Love each other and just be together here until there’s a way for us to get out.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. And the cruelty of that really, really hurt.

  “So, you’re gonna kill me again? What if I don’t come back this time? What if you got one second chance and that was it? You kill me and I’m gone and then you’re alone in here forever.”

  He didn’t hesitate to answer. “All I know is what I need now. My urges are all I am. I’m nothing but the drive to get what I need.”

  “What if you try?”

  “I have no urge for that.”

  I covered my eyes with my hands, exasperated, distraught, and heartbroken.

  He was suddenly on me, pushing me to my back.

  “What did you do after you killed me?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Did you bury me? Did you walk away? Did you… feel sad?”

  “I walked away.”

  “And then?”

  He shrugged. “And then I found myself coming over the top of that hill and I saw you under the tree.”

  I blinked. “So, you killed me and then walked away and just left my dead body in the dirt?”

  “Yes. So pretty in death. Even prettier than in life.”

  I swallowed down what felt like dust and shook my head. “And then you find yourself facing me again and you feel the immediate urge to kill me again?”

  “Yes. As I told you… This is all I am.”

  “You felt nothing when you killed me?”

  He shook his head. “I felt just one instant of joy. Just one brief moment of ---” he stopped and looked confused, like he was searching for a word.

  “Of?” I prompted.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He moved off me, sitting back on the edge of the bed again. I sat up, holding the shirt to my chest.

  His eyes scanned the room, as if looking for something. “Maybe if I come inside you this time instead of stopping, maybe I’ll feel it then.”

  My eyes widened. Maybe? Maybe if he felt that emotion he seemed to be reaching for with sex, he would realize he didn’t have to hurt me. I dropped the shirt, baring my breasts to him.

  His eyes drank me in, and I saw excitement flare in them.

  I lay back, spreading my legs wide. His eyes moved down to my most private place. My heart was beating wildly with fear. But also with something else. Hope. If we could replicate that feeling he got when he hurt me, maybe I could convince him to just do this instead. Until when? I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to endure pain at his hands again. This alternative held a whole lot more appeal.

  I felt actual arousal at the prospect of pleasure instead of pain. He leaned forward onto his knees and bent to put his nose between my legs. He inhaled deep and then he let out a little moan and his hand cupped me there. I panicked and reached, thinking about the tampon, wondering if it was back as well. It wasn’t there. I looked at my hand. No blood, either.

  “These pretty blonde curls down here. You grew them back for me. To please me.”

  I nodded, tears welling up in my eyes at the smile on his face, which was so deceiving, because it looked pure.

  “I love you,” I whispered, sadly.

  He lavishly licked me, his tongue slipping in, deep. And then he went hungrier and had my bottom in both hands as he lifted me up so he could feast on me down there. His tongue moved inside me and then his nose nuzzled directly against my clit, making goosebumps break out everywhere. I was quickly on the precipice of an orgasm.

  “Do you love me, Holden?”

  He chuckled with salacious intent and then rammed two fingers inside me, then opened them inside, looking between my legs, looking inside of me, I guess.

  He let go and my body fell to the ancient mattress, sending dust up into the air.

  He unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged it off, then went for his fly. I watched his muscles ripple in the lamplight and when he came at me, I wrapped my arms and legs around him and opened my mouth, submitting to his mouth plundering mine with his lips, didn’t protest when his tongue dipped in, and let out a small cry when his teeth tugged on my lower lip as he filled me.

  “Holden,” I whispered, letting myself feel the beauty of him inside me. I let my mind drift back to our beautiful wedding night, when he made love to me without removing my white dress, instead pushing it up as he undid the bodice and kissed me between my breasts.

  “You’re the most beautiful bride there ever was,” he told me.

  “and the luckiest,” I said, running my fingers through the wavy dark hair on his head. His hazel eyes were filled with love, with devotion as he unsnapped the lingerie between my legs with a grin.

  I grinned back.

  Holden now thrusted inside me over and over, grunting, sweating, twisting me between the legs with his fingers and then biting down on my nipple so hard that blood trickled down my breast. He laved the blood up with his tongue and in the mixture of pleasure and pain, I climaxed, crying out loudly as his mouth then came down on mine and gave me a taste of myself and my blood.

 

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