Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

“Shut the fuck up! You don’t get to ask me questions! You should have stayed,” Zane snarled and pushed Roach back with all the strength in his muscles.

“What the fuck, Zane?” Roach growled. He put his coffee on the window and pulled off his shirt. “I was just trying to be nice and listen, and shit!”

“Nothing you’d do now is going to make it better, so stop trying! I just want this bullshit thing to be over. To get on with my life!” Zane squatted by the wall when his throat narrowed, turning his breathing into a wheeze reminiscent of Gale’s back at the motel.

Why, why him?

Roach dumped the wet T-shirt next to the coffee and put on the hoodie over naked skin. “Oh right, ‘cause you’re gonna kill me. Almost forgot.” He rolled his eyes.

He actually rolled his eyes.

Of course. Because he believed Zane liked him, and that they’d be together forever since Roach was so cute, so considerate, so protective, and a good fuck. He had another thing coming.

Roach looked up, not even caring that he didn’t get an answer, and walked up to the door instead, as if he were hypnotized. “Oh, fuck. It’s the magic lady. What’shername. Karla.”

The world truly wanted to mock Zane today.

Chapter 19 – Roach

Roach squinted and zipped up his hoodie as the woman waved at him from behind the window in the upper part of the door. “Oh no… She’s coming here. The fuck does she want?”

Zane resembled Samara from The Ring. Scooting by the wall, he only briefly looked up from behind the dense curtain of hair. “Make her go away. For fuck’s sake, I’m done with her shit, and we haven’t even sold her damn candle holder yet.”

But the door opened, and Karla walked in, dressed in a patchwork tunic and skinny jeans, gray hair fluffy around her sweet young-old-lady face. She was wearing earrings this time, made of plastic and shaped like cherries. A more refined version of her hippy-dippy style.

Roach stood between her and Zane, still mildly freaked out by the outburst of less than a minute ago and all the more eager to fulfill his lover’s wishes. “I left the dead cat in your driveway. You’ve got no proof of anything, and we kept our mouths shut about your scams.”

Karla showed him her palms, as if she wanted to reassure them she was coming in peace. “I don’t intend to press charges.”

The shuffling behind Roach meant Zane was back on his feet. “Then what? Are you following us?”

“No, I just…” She glanced at Gale, who still slept, his heart beating evenly, as evidenced by the machinery attached to him. “I was visiting someone at the hospital, and when I saw you, I knew I had to talk to you. I’ve not had peace since that fateful night, and I need to know. Was what you were saying true, or some elaborate chicanery?”

Roach squinted, unsure what that last word was, but from context, he’d assume it meant scam. “It’s true,” he said quietly and stepped to the side so he could see Zane too.

The gray eyes peeked at him from lowered brows. “Don’t you dare cut yourself again just to satisfy this hag’s curiosity. We’re not here for her entertainment!”

Karla inhaled in exasperation. “No. No, you don’t understand! A day hasn’t gone by in the past two months that I wouldn’t be thinking about you two. I feel like I’ve missed out on a brush with the real thing.”

“As in, you’re still scamming people with your very non-real powers?” Zane asked in a low voice.

Karla shook her head and looked away. “It’s not like that. Since I was a little girl, believe it or not, I’ve seen people’s auras. I’ve had this interest in the paranormal. When the first person came to me about a ghost, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I never managed to contact the dead. I did a séance for them, and the relief it had given them spurred me on when the next person came asking to contact their dead father. I just… I help people, give them closure. I settled into thinking that the world was what it was, but then you came along and… you gave me such hope that I haven’t been wrong thinking that there’s more to this world, things we can’t see. I want to know. I want to help.”

Roach licked his lips, glancing back at Zane’s weirdly sullen expression. Why wasn’t he jumping on this opportunity? If anything, Roach had been the one putting the brakes on their paranormal research in the past two months because he wasn’t invested in cutting their bond and finding out if he’d really need to fight Zane to the death.

The hospital setting must have been what had triggered Zane’s anxiety. He’d never spoken about the extent of the injuries he’d sustained that night and Roach avoided the topic as well. He’d asked today, and Zane had thrown hot coffee at him, so he figured he’d help Zane most by taking his mind off the past and focusing it on the present.