I should’ve been used to these nightmares by now.

I had them frequently. Frequently enough that, when they bloomed in my mind like a night flower, I should’ve been prepared to regard them not with shock and horror, but with quiet acceptance. My heart should have failed to race. My blood should have went on pumping without the cold slime of adrenaline bubbling through it.

When I saw the dark stretch of road—the same one I’d seen in my mind’s eye for years now—I should have had the presence of mind not to panic, and to turn away, to abandon the hopelessness I knew pulsed and beckoned from within.

That was never the case, though. In my dreams, my subconscious mind was rid of all common sense, of all memory of having been in this very place before. The wet, chilled asphalt my bare feet niggled at me, a distant purveyor of déjà vu. And yet I could not place it. As always, I stood before the black, gaping maw and trembled, drawn into it like a moth to an endothermic flame.

The air around me pulsed, quietly at first, and steady like the drumming of a pulse. As I floated into the heart of the darkness the rhythm grew louder, like I’d entered some twisted creature’s aorta, like I was an intruder into its most intimate of organs. With each tattoo, the night around me closed in, becoming an oppressive, tangible thing, and if I reached my hand out, I caught wisps of it dancing between my fingers.

I breathed in a sharp gasp, and that was when it all went slithering down my throat. I tried to close my jaws, tried to bite down on the viscous matter infiltrating my stomach and lungs, filling me up with cold, but there was no use. In this dream, I was always too weak, too paralyzed by fear to fight off the danger consuming me from the inside out.

In the distance came small, golden light, accompanied by a shrill wail—the sound of a freight train lumbering down the tracks, faster and faster, closer and closer, the road beneath me shaking with its approach. The light grew brighter, too bright to behold, but those tendrils of night held my eyelids fast, forcing me to watch as the train barreled toward me, a fragile sack of meat in its path.

I stared until I went blind. Until all that existed was the light, the scream of the engine, and the coldness inside of me.

Until, mercifully, I woke up.

The nightmare clung for many moments as I lay there, clutching my sheets and willing my eyes to just stay shut. There are a few minutes between dreaming and waking when I am never quite certain if I’ve truly woke, and I feared that if I looked into the shadows of my room, they’d come rushing toward me, eager to bind me and hold me fast in the path of that locomotive once more. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry and thick; I needed water—my own had been drained from me, turned into cold dew that adhered like a wet veil to my brow—but to do that, I needed to be able to see.

I peeked out of the slits my eyelids made and held my breath. When no demons showed themselves, I let out a long sigh and opened my eyes fully. The room around me, though dark, caught the scant moonlight on its soft, white walls, its accents colored in a delicate pink. I hated it. But I knew that try as I might, those walls would never change. This room would always look as though a child lived in it—someone pure and virginal.

If only my guardian knew the truth.

Guardian. Was that really what he was? That was what he called himself, what he expected others to call him. He’d spent so much time reinforcing the idea of it that half of Pleasant Lakes thought we were actually related. Dominic Delfino and his dutiful, adopted daughter, Lucy.

The truth was I was his prisoner. The truth was he was my warden. But I supposed, if you were looking to spin the situation in your favor, guardian sounded just a little less shitty.

After all, the official story was that he’d kindly taken me in after my parents’ death. He was one of my mother’s cousins, and yet he’d been the only one who showed up to claim me. The only one who’d sat by my hospital bed while I recovered from the car crash that made me an orphan. I was the sole survivor, my parents’ singular legacy at just twelve years old. I’d never imagined what would happen to me if they died. I just assumed there’d be someone else to take care of me. An aunt or an uncle. Someone—anyone—who wasn’t Dominic Delfino.

There wasn’t, though. There was only him. And at one time, I could remember feeling grateful for stepping up like that. I was too young back then, too naïve, to understand the cost.

I could hear his voice coming from below, engaged in conversation with two others’. I fumbled for the clock on my nightstand, squinting at its hands in the dark.

Well past midnight. What was Delfino doing down there—and with company—at this hour?

I probably should have waited to get my drink of water. I probably should have left Delfino to his own devices—ironically, for all his surveillance of his ward, he was a private man when it came to his affairs—but I was parched. And curious. In my guardian’s opinion, that was a definite failing. That only made me want to know what was going on all the more.

It didn’t help matters much that I had the perfect excuse if I got caught.

Carefully, so as not to make any noise, I swung my legs over the side of my bed and slipped my feet into a pair of slippers I knew would muffle my steps. Then I stole toward my bedroom door, avoiding the hardwood planks I knew would creak beneath my weight, and put my ear against the thin space I’d left between it and the jamb.

The light was definitely on downstairs, and now that I was nearer, I could hear the two other voices more distinctly: a woman’s and a man’s. Their tones were far more hushed than Delfino’s, their words clipped and frantic. But I still couldn’t make out what they were saying. I was going to have to take a bigger risk.

Softly, I grazed my foot against the bottom of the door and let it fall in a little more toward me. The hinges were ancient and hadn’t been oiled in years—another of Delfino’s measures, meant to ensure he knew where I was at all times—and anything more than a gentle breeze would make them whine. They did make a few creaking protests, even with my careful touch, but as I’d hoped, the bulk of their noise was drowned out by the conversation heating up downstairs.

I quickly shuffled to the banister, clutching the posts as I crouched down, making myself a small target for Delfino’s hawkish gaze. His flinty eyes always seemed to find me, no matter how well-hidden I imagined I was. But tonight, distracted by the couple standing in our foyer, his superhuman abilities failed him.

I’d never seen him so red in the face before. Not for a long time, at least. I could have sworn that in just the few, short hours since I’d seen him last, he had sprouted a thatch of gray hairs along his temples. His bloodless lips were a thin slash across his face, making the lines at either end of his mouth seem like deep, dark ravines.

“This is absurd. Drive him out of town. Drop him off at a hospital in the city. Leave him in a ditch, for all I care. That boy cannot stay here.”

As I peered beyond him, I saw that the man he was talking to was Mr. Parrish, and beside him was his wife, Jane. They were the night-time security officers for some of the farmland just outside of town. So what were they doing back here? And who was “he”?

My heart dared to leap for one small, painful instant. A tiny seed of hope grew roots deep in my chest. And then it was gone, dismissed as quickly as it had invaded me. No, it couldn’t be him. He’d never come back from me, now that he was free. I was the anchor he’d left behind. I was impressed with myself when, after all this time, my lip finally didn’t tremble at the memory.

Delfino stood stock-still as Mrs. Parrish said, “It’s been done, sir. We couldn’t just leave him lying there, out in the road like that. Or even in the back of our truck. You didn’t see him. How hurt he was…”

He cut her off with a glare, looking now to Mr. Parrish. “I assume you felt the same?”

Mr. Parrish sighed. “Jane was right, Father. What if someone else had found him out there? Someone who wouldn’t have known to come straight to you with it? You might have had a lot of questions to answer. More still, if the boy had woken up on his way to the city hospital and seen our faces.”

Delfino’s expression darkened then. “By then, he would’ve been far enough away not to cause any trouble.”

It was all I could do to keep from wiggling through the opening between the rails. I wanted to know, more than anything else at that moment, more than the thirst that sent prickling heat down my throat, what they were talking about—and why Delfino was affected so.

Because something that could make him act like that? It had to be powerful. I was awestruck. I had to know.

Henry Parrish shook his head. “What if he’d died, Mr. Delfino? The boy would be on your conscience, then.”

Time seemed to slow then. Delfino stared at Henry impassively, his demeanor like that of a hurricane’s eye, the bluster and destruction still whirling all around it. I braced myself for things to get messy—for the tension to break and for Delfino to finally lose his cool—but I couldn’t have done anything to prepare myself for what he said next.

“I washed my hands of Leo Richards years ago. He hasn’t been on my conscience since.”

All the air gusted out of my lungs and I sat back hard, a stab of pain jolting through my tailbone.

Leo Richards. Delfino had said his name—after all these years, he’d said the name of my first love. Of the boy who stole my heart, and my chastity, that one, hot night when I was so sure of everything. So sure of him.

The one who’d sped off into the darkness a few days later, never to return.

Or so I’d thought.

But here he was. Back in town. Back in my life. Just like that.

How? It had all seemed so final back then. The Hounds of Hell had left to avoid starting a serious turf war. Why would one of their men come back and risk upsetting the delicate political balance for everyone else?

“I have to make a phone call,” Delfino said, dismissing our company with one simple, curt phrase. Once he heard the door close behind them, I watched as he unlocked his phone with a passcode—unknown even to me—chose a contact from his list, and then put the phone to his ear.

“It’s Delfino,” he said when the other party picked up. “We have a problem. A mess I’m going to need your assistance in cleaning up.”

The Devil himself had returned to Pleasant Lakes, and now I knew why Delfino was on edge. He was afraid of what Leo would do to this town, to our way of life. He was afraid, too, that the Devil would tempt me again, just as he’d done in the past.

And if I was being honest with myself—if I could admit the spark of elation in my heart that set every one of my nerves on fire—I was worried about that exact same thing.