I recoil from the box, stumbling back until I find the wall. I lean against it, trying to breathe, my palm mashed against my mouth as I try not to scream this entire fucking house down.

Did I just see what I think I saw? A pine storage box in the attic that’s now somebody’s coffin. I bite my fist to stop myself from yelling, edging back to the box.

Damon King.

My lovely girlfriend was lying about the letters she got from him, unless she handed him the paper and pen herself. Because her stepfather hasn’t been fishing in early retirement or taking stress leave in the Ozarks. No. He’s been in our fucking attic this entire time.

I peer over the edge of the coffin, and just when I think things can’t get worse, I’m sorely proven wrong. Dead Damon opens his eyes and stares straight at me, his bright blue eyes the only thing I recognize about before. But this isn’t a horror movie, folks. He’s not a vampire waiting to rise from his coffin and drink my blood. He’s a man who’s been starved until his skin stretches painfully over his bones, his cheekbones sharp and jutting, his neck bulging with veins, an array of chains and handcuffs restraining him. He’s got duct tape over his mouth, to keep him quiet I suppose, and without thinking, I rip that tape off.

If it hurts, he doesn’t show pain. No, the captive who’s been imprisoned in our attic opens his mouth and fucking laughs.

There’s something about his laugh — hollow and throaty and maniacal — that terrifies me almost to the point of a goddamn heart attack. I slam the lid of the box shut, but he’s still fucking laughing, the sound drilling into my brain like a sledgehammer. I open the lid again, just long enough to slap the tape back on his mouth, and then I slam it shut again.

“Leo!” I hear Cassie yell from downstairs. Damon’s in our attic. He’s in our fucking attic! I must be in fucking shock, my head swimming in a sea of what the fuck as I exit the attic and head down to the bathroom.

“Yeah?” I say, my voice sounding foreign, what the fuck has she done? Cassie doesn’t notice me, one hand on the shower wall as steam billows around her.

“Oh, shit,” I say, noticing the way she’s hunched over, her face scrunched up in pain. “Is this it?”

What the fuck have you done?

What the fuck have you DONE?

But I can’t ask her to please stop being in labor so she can explain to me why the FUCK there is a dude tied up in our attic, a man who looks like he’s been starved within an inch of actual death. If it weren’t for the eyes, I wouldn’t even recognize him, because he’d surely fit right into a concentration camp in wartime Nazi Germany.

“This is it,” Cassie breathes, straightening, as what I’m assuming was a contraction passes. And then she’s fine, normal, standing in the bath smiling at me. “We should start filling that birthing pool.”

Sure thing, Cassie. Whatever you want, babe. Whatever the fuck you want.

I help Cassie dress — yoga pants and a sports bra — and then we head downstairs. She has to stop halfway as another contraction rips through her, and holy shit I thought it would happen more slowly than this. Isn’t it supposed to be a gradual thing at first? Maybe my super sperm burst her cervix open last night when she climbed on top of me and went to town. Who fucking knows. I help her down to the sofa, sit her down, and take a spot across from her.

“You should start timing my contractions,” she says.

I nod. “In a minute. I need to talk to you about something.”

She raises her eyebrows, pissed. “I’m in labor.”

I glimpse the key dangling around her neck, the one I’ve since learned is a rip-off of those keys you buy that are engraved with taglines. You know, chicks wear these keys that say LOVE or TRUST or STRENGTH as some kind of fucking totem to remind themselves of. I always thought Cassie’s said Nomad. I’d tease her for it - you can’t be a nomad if you’ve never been anywhere - and she’d laugh.

But I guess the joke’s on me.

Because Nomad spelled backward is Damon.