Veiled by Karina Halle Page A

Something. I could hear it breathing. I could feel the weight on the end of the bed.”
    A flash of fear comes across her eyes but she quickly buries it, raising her chin. “You know that the sensation of having someone at the foot of your bed is part of the syndrome, it’s common.”
    “And then it got up . The thing, the person, whatever it was got up and I felt it. It touched my foot! And then I saw it. I saw that it was real . The closet door opened wide all by itself and the, the being walked inside. Perry, it had a fucking tail .”
    She swallows, her jaw tense and she looks over at the closet, staring at it in a strange way, like it’s compelling her.
    “I got up,” I tell her. “I went over to the closet and it was almost like it wanted me to open it. I heard mom’s voice again, Perry. Just like in my dream. Telling me to find her, help her, that she wasn’t alone. In my dream she told me that the Michael demon died with her. It’s with her now.”
    “It was a dream,” Perry whispers, voice shaking. Her eyes are still focused on the shut closet door. “You said so yourself.”
    “So I almost opened the closet door. Then a man told me not to. I turned around and there he was.” I gesture to beside the nightstand. “He told me I wasn’t dreaming, that I shouldn’t go inside.”
    Perry nods absently and starts walking toward the closet.
    “Perry,” I warn her.
    She shakes her head, gingerly raising her hand to shush me. She stops just outside the door and closes her eyes.
    I come over to her, keeping a safe distance, watching curiously.
    “Perry?” I whisper, wondering if she’s asleep on her feet.
    Her eyes snap open and she leaps backward, her hand at the Kyuss logo on her faded band t-shirt. “No,” she cries out softly.
    The skin on the back of my neck prickles, my fingertips numb.
    “No what?” I ask her, afraid. Because when she’s afraid I have more of a reason to be.
    “I don’t know,” she says, voice shaking. She looks at me, her brow creased. “I don’t know, but this is bad. There is something very bad about all of this.”
    “No shit!” I yell, unable to keep it to a whisper. “There was a creature who went into my closet and then a strange man appeared in my room right afterward!”
    The door to my room opens and both of us yelp in unison, jumping in place.
    “What the fuck is going on in here?” Dex asks as he pokes his head in, brow furrowed as he takes us in.
    Perry brushes past me to him and points at the closet. “There’s something in that closet. I don’t know if it’s there now but it was there. And that isn’t a closet. It may have been when you looked last but it’s not anymore. I don’t know what it is but I can feel it all the way in my bones that this is very, very bad.” She looks over at me. “Ada, I think you should come back with Dex and I tomorrow to Seattle.”
    “What?” Dex and I say at the same time exchanging a glance.
    “I’m serious,” she goes on, rubbing her lips together, her eyes darting back to the closet. “I don’t think you should sleep in this room anymore Ada, let alone this house. All those feelings I had before I was possessed. I’m having them here again.”
    “Are you sure?” Dex asks, grabbing her hand.
    “I think so,” she says, looking to me. “I believe you Ada. Whatever is here isn’t good. Whatever went in that closet might come back.”
    “Wait, what?” Dex says, raising his hands. “Can you ladies catch me up to speed here?”
    “Ada woke up with something in the room with her. It got off her bed and went into the closet. It had a tail . . .”
    Dex eyes me, raising his brows. “Well holy shit then.”
    “I also saw someone else in the room. I was talking to him. And he was real.”
    I think.
    Perry eyes him and I can’t read what she’s thinking. “When I walked in here she was talking to someone. I never heard another voice.”
    I frown. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone here