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"Trey," I said softly, trying to keep the excited tremble from my voice as butterflies internally attacked my stomach. "How are you?"
It had been months since I'd heard his voice and the fluid, deep alto melody of his words made my knees weak. He didn't know it, or maybe he did and had chosen to ignore it for six years, but I'd been in 'serious like' with him since I'd turned eighteen. If it had been just him and me, I wouldn't have left for my uncle Elijah's flat in Paris to study art, but as it was, 'him and me' had never existed. Of course, it wasn't only me pining after a man for six years, a man who happened to be in love with my sister that had made me leave.
"Lins is in trouble!"
And there it was: Belinda or Lins as Trey called her.
"When is she not in trouble?" I mumbled under my breath.
The bane of my existence just happened to be my older, 'the-world-revolves-around-me,' sister. Once upon a time, she and I were like glue. Dealing with the satanic, ritualistic murder of our parents when I was sixteen only made the bond we shared stronger. At eighteen, Belinda had fought our estranged uncle—as in we didn't know we'd had one—for custody of me since I was still a minor. Thankfully, she'd won and when I turned seventeen we went to get two sets of matching tattoos to remind us of what happened to our parents, but also to remind us that they'd loved us deeply.
The first tattoo, we'd decided, would depict a yin and yang image of the sun and moon. I had the moon and she had the sun. To my parents, I was their 'little moonbeam' and she was their 'little ray of sunlight,' so it had been a perfect choice. The tattoo was only complete when we put the arches of our feet, my left, and her right, together. The second tattoo we'd gotten was placed just above our hearts. It was the Celtic 'circle of life' knot designed as two hearts, and it was connected together by the infinity symbol, honoring the brutal death of our mother and father.
I glanced down at my Batman, sock-covered ankle feeling remorse over my parents' vicious loss of life and at my ugly reaction to the mere mention of Belinda's name. She took care of me when she could've just been a teenager going to school. She put in the work to get me where I was and that's my reaction to her name?
Shame flooded my stomach. Lins was no doubt a drama queen, but she gave up her teenage years to raise me. I loved her, but sometimes enough was enough. It seems Paris wasn't far enough though.
"...brainwashed!"
I frowned as the last of his words registered. "Wait, what?"
"What don't you get? Aren't you listening? Lins-she's-sh-she..." his stuttering trailed off.
"Trey, stop," I said. "Take a breath. I can't understand you when you're stammering like that."
Over the phone, I heard him take a deep, shaking breath. The wheeze in his exhale sounded like someone was sitting on his chest, crushing a lung, but when he spoke again, minus the stutter, the tremor of fear in his voice was still there, "Bells, it's Lins."
I heaved a sigh and flopped on the pink floral futon in my room. "Yes, I got that part." It was always about Belinda when it came to Trey too. "What's wrong with my big sis now? You know, as the younger sister, I'm supposed to be the troublemaker, not her. It's my right!"
He didn't acknowledge my sarcasm when he spoke again, "She's gone, Bells."
Trey's whimper made me pause, but then I shook my head. It was a routine between Trey and Belinda that I'd fallen for too many times. I'd gotten away from Belinda's life-sucking ways and my crush on Trey was ebbing. I was in Paris, studying and perfecting my art... I wasn't going to fall for it this time. I was finally doing something that I wanted to do. It was something and somewhere where Belinda didn't dominate everything with her overzealous personality and creepy hunting stories about the paranormal happenings she'd caught on tape. I was making it on my own, and Belinda's dramatics wasn't going to change the truth, a truth Belinda now knew too—that I didn't need her as much as she needed me.
"There's no point in continuing—"
"Listen to me, Belladonna, this is not a trick. We had a job that went wrong and Lins... she got too caught up in it. People died."
I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes as I tucked my leg underneath my butt. "That's not funny. That's what I call going too damn far."
"I'm serious! We-" he stopped and cleared his throat. "We went to Dead Cult Manor."
"What??" I gasped. "She promised! Damn it!!"
"I know."
"She promised after what happened to Mom and Dad she'd never go there!"
"I know, Bells! It was the 100th episode though. 'It's Out There' needed a spark again!"
"Not Dead Cult Manor! And her goddamn show is still number one! What more does she want?"
Dead Cult Manor was the one legend Belinda had stayed away from. Numerous high school friends had ended up dead or had gone missing on dares to spend the night in the crumbling mansion. There was too much personal history, too much paranormal there for Belinda.
"Our parents died because of Dead Cult fanatics. How could she?" I cried as the sickening, gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal filled me.
"She knows. We all know, but her producer caught wind of the Dead Cult legend and asked her about it. Lins knew it had to be a good one. I mean, the 100th episode? It had to be brutal and amazing and it's from our home town. One of the most famous ghost hunters lived near something so haunted and never explored it. It would've been gold. It's why we all agreed to go and prep the area."
'It's Out There' was my sister's paranormal hunting television show. If Belinda couldn't be the star in my life she had to be the star in everyone else's. "Are you serious?" I asked.
"Very. We brought the big guns out too."
Their 'big guns' were a lesbian couple: Yana Malik, a genius Parapsychologist, and a strong medium named Min Ah Zhang. Yana was a regular on Belinda's show, but they only used Min Ah, who refused to be on TV, when they had to check and prep the venue... to see if it was really haunted. I didn't believe in a lot of the paranormal happenings everyone else seemed to believe in but Min Ah was the real deal.
I'd seen her work firsthand. So I did believe in ghosts and unfinished business but to an extent.
Goosebumps scattered down my arms and I shivered. I loved that petite Korean girl who had an unhealthy obsession with body piercings, but she scared the daylights out of me sometimes with her ability to communicate with the dead.
Min Ah knew things about my parents' death that Belinda couldn't have known. Like how I'd been the one to discover them first and how I ran around the block to get away from the bloody horror. When I got back Belinda had been sitting on the stone steps of our front porch, face splotched from crying and the blood that had been everywhere. She'd kept me from going inside and to this day, Belinda thought she'd shielded me from that grotesque scene. So Belinda didn't know, but Min Ah did the first time I met her. It wasn't like I advertised that information either. Min Ah just knew.
"Belladonna? Did you hear me?"
This was a joke. One Belinda and Trey were taking too far. "Don't use my full name like that! You know I don't like it. And yes, I heard you," I said. "Even with Min Ah, Lins is too scared of that legend. I'm not falling for this again, Trey!"
"Jax, Danika, and Sam... they're dead."
Now I was just angry. For him to use Danika and Sam in the scheme was beyond mean. "They weren't on the show and they have no experience hunting, so why would they even have gone? If you and Lins are gonna lie to try and get me to come home, then use better lies!"
Sam was the closest thing I had to a first love. We'd never dated officially, my parents had been way too strict for that, but we'd pined for each other throughout grade school. Wrote love letters, and brushed hands in the halls for seven solid years. Then Sam got tired of not being able to kiss me or hold my hand in public, and my best friend Danika had been willing to give him what I couldn't in my Freshman year of high school. Devastated and pissed, I'd refused to talk to either of them for a long time, but then my parents were murdered and they stayed by my side all summer.
"Check your e-mail," Trey said.
"So, are they back together?" I asked casually. "I know they tried that long-distance thing for a while, but it didn't work. Danika did say she was moving back home after college though. I guess they reconnected?"
"Bells, please check your e-mail."
Sighing heavily, I got up, slipping on the cherry oak wood floor. I scowled down at my Batman socks and shuffled my feet towards my computer desk so I didn't fall. The laptop dinged as it loaded, indicating that I'd gotten mail. I clicked on 'Treyzballin4eva' e-mail and downloaded the attachment. I expected it to be a huge smiling face, or an emoji rolling around laughing at my gullibility, but it wasn't.
"What the hell is this?" I couldn't contain the high pitch shrill in my voice as I read on and even though I asked the question, I knew what I was looking at. I knew all too well. "Oh, my God!" I whispered.
A heavy black weight filled the pit of my stomach as flashbacks of my parent's deaths flooded me. Blood splattered walls, lifeless eyes, police sirens, and heavy male voices. I swallowed. "This isn't some obscene joke?" I asked but I knew even Belinda wouldn't fake obituaries.
"I'm sorry, Bells, but it isn't."
"This was almost a month ago. Why am I finding out about it now? Why didn't anyone call me?"
His voice shook as he spoke, "They're still recovering pieces of their bodies and I just got released from custody. Blame the only black guy, right?"
"The police thought you did it? Your dad's the Sheriff!" I whispered harshly, shaking my head as my eyes continued to read the newspaper clippings.
"He didn't have a choice. State police got involved. I think they thought we all did it, like it was a conspiracy or something. It's all over the news here. Min Ah, Caleb, me, and Yana—God, they kept us for days. The questions were never-ending, but our stories matched too well. They had to let us go."
"So, the funerals?" was all I could get out.
"I don't—I don't know. The investigators have had suspicious accidents while trying to get into the Manor and are now considering it a loss, but Danika's parents won't have the funeral until they have all of her. I just don't know, but what I do know is you need to come home. Now. They couldn't blame us and they definitely weren't going to say ghosts did it, so they're blaming Belinda. My dad tried to keep it out of the news, but the happenings of your parents' death got leaked too."
My heart actually hurt. "What?"
"At first, they were saying Belinda went crazy, that finding her parents slaughtered and then you leaving, warped her, and she finally snapped."
"What are they saying now?" I whispered.
"They're saying Belinda started her murder spree young and that her first victims were her parents."
Unwanted flashbacks surfaced in my mind. Blood streaked the walls, pooling on the uneven floor of the living room. Weird symbols were carved into their bodies, the stark horror on their faces from torture and the death that followed. I swallowed a gag and shook my head. "That is absurd! Is it the media or the cops saying this?"
Trey sighed. "Both. They have to point a finger and Lins is MIA. I know where she is. She never left the Manor, I swear to God. She is still there. I told them Lins isn't a murderer and that she was being held captive, but nobody can find her. It was empty even when they dragged us back to the Manor."
"Being held—by who?"
I heard him swallow over the phone, "By the priests."
"Those priests have been dead for like a hundred years."
"Not anymore. After they killed Danika and Sam one of the priests became solid as fuck and he took Lins. She's been brainwashed or possessed or something. I couldn't get through to her, not even Caleb could."
"Who the hell is Caleb?"
"Caleb," Trey spat his name with disgust, "was Belinda's link to the Dead Cult Clan. Apparently, he owns the Manor but doesn't live there, and we had to get permission to enter. He's also her current love obsession... I know she never loved me. She friend-zoned me too fast and I watched her go after other men, but this was different somehow. It was like she had no choice."
"Do you think this Caleb knew what was happening?"
"The only legacy of a satanic cult, in my opinion, would know very well what was going to happen."
"Just because his ancestors were a part of Dead Cult doesn't mean he was. Is he still in town?"
"Yes. Why?"
I licked my lips and headed toward my room. "Because I'm gonna find my sister and if that means I have to cover every inch of that nasty Manor then I will. Get Min Ah and Yana too. When I get there we're all going back into Dead Cult Manor."
Trey sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. When will you be here?"
"Hopefully, by tomorrow night," I said. "And Trey, bring your camera. Nothing goes undocumented, if the killer is still on the land we get him on camera. Pepper spray, a couple of tasers, and some zip ties should be enough to stop him."
I lifted my black suitcase and placed it on the bed.
"Yeah, Bells, if he were human!"
"Oh come on. Get off it! There isn't time for that nonsense. I want Eric and Taryn with us if possible," I added. "Eric mentioned he was going to visit Taryn and talk to her class. Is he still there?"
Eric was a champion UFC fighter and Taryn taught mixed martial arts just outside of town. Having these two with us would make me feel a lot better.
"He-um, Danika and Sam, and--they didn't make it either."
Danika. Sam.
I exhaled and clutched my chest. "Why were they there to begin with?"
One of the best things about Trey, he just got it. No clarification was needed. I'd grown up with him after all. "Danika made a camera with a special lens for Belinda, but it wasn't finished yet and she didn't want anyone handling it without her being present. She insisted on being there. And Sam—"
Okay, I did know about that, so I could understand Danika. She had an eye for technology and enhancing things threefold. But Sam—Sam was a soccer player aiming to go pro before he reached his twenty-fifth birthday.
"Sam came because he thought he'd get some ass?" I offered. "It's cool. I'm over him."
"I'm sure that's not why he came, but it doesn't matter anymore. They're both dead," he paused and I heard his shiver over the phone. "I think the priests are crossing between dimensions or something. I'm the first to admit that your sister has found some crazy shit, but this was beyond. Far beyond."
"Eric was there? And what do you mean Lins is with them? Those crazy-ass satanic priests have been dead for more than a century. You don't expect me to believe they just popped out of their graves and said 'boo' do you?"
"I assure you, they did not say boo. Two of them are solid, but the other two are barely corporeal. I think it was—I think Jax, Eric, Danika, and Sam were sacrificed to bring them back, like fully. Four sacrifices," he paused, before speaking again, this time in a hushed whisper so soft I had to strain to hear him, "two solid, flesh and fucking blood... that's why they needed all of us. Two for one-- holy shit! ... I need to call Yana, Min Ah, and Caleb."
"Again, who the fuck is Caleb? No, wait, you know what, just tell me when I get there. I'll see you tomorrow!"
I hung the phone up hastily before another thought crossed my mind. I reached for my computer mouse and scrolled down to see the last two obituaries. He had said four people were dead.
"No," I whispered. "Oh no, no."
It was Eric and Taryn. I guess my 'big guns' weren't coming to save my ass this time.
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