I woke up to the sound of my door opening, opened my eyes to see Lily moving across the room to my bed. I looked up at her as she stood next to it, looking down at my face, heat and anger in her eyes.

“Lilian,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“I want my own room,” she said to me.

“What?” I asked her, sitting up in bed.

“I don’t want to stay in this suite anymore,” she said, biting her lip.

“Oh,” I said. “Um, do we—do we have to do this now?”

She stared at me for a moment without speaking. I reached for her in the dark, wrapping my arms around her waist, pulling her body onto mine on the bed. She molded against me, her body pressed along the length of mine, her face hovering above me.

“Why are you so difficult?” I asked her, pushing her hair back from her face. “Why can’t you just let this happen?”

“Nothing is happening,” she said, lowering her face to take my mouth in a soft kiss. “This is a vacation. A fling. After tonight—after tonight, I’m moving rooms.”

“You’re moving rooms, and then what?”

“And then I’m going to tell the cops what I know about Michael, and they’re going to let me leave,” she said.

“What do you know about Michael, Lily?” I asked her. “Tell me, baby.”

She shook her head, sucking on my bottom lip, her hips grinding against mine. I could feel her getting worked up, could feel her pussy growing wet against me.

“I wish you would stop calling me that,” she said, kissing me again, lifting her hips up to take my cock in her small hand. She began to stroke it, making it grow even harder under her touch. Even as she resisted me, she guided me inside of her, started to lower her hips down so that she could take my cock fully inside of her. The look on her face took my breath away as I filled her up just the way she liked it. I started to lift my hips against hers and she allowed me to control her body that way, bouncing her up and down on my lap, riding against her.

“You’re telling me that this is the last time you want to do this?” I said to her. “Is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded, moving her hips against mine, her robe falling open to reveal her breasts. She felt so good riding my cock, her sweet tight pussy taking all of me over and over as I rode against her. I cupped her breasts in my hands, lowered my mouth to taste her nipple. I let her ride at her own rhythm but occasionally I would jerk my hips upward, shoving myself deep inside of her, making her cry out with pleasure every time. I knew the more I did it, the closer she got to coming, but I wanted to stretch this out and make it last if it was the last time I got to fuck her.

I took her hips in my hands and held them still, pulling her tight against me, my cock buried deep inside of her. She tried to move but I held her still, looking up into her eyes.

“What do you think is going to happen when you leave here?”

“What?” she asked, her voice breathy, even as she struggled to loosen herself from my grip. I held her still and merely lifted my hips slightly to grind against the back of her pussy, knowing that the shallow thrusts would drive her crazy.

“You think you can just go home and forget this happened?”

“I hope so,” she said, then whimpered when I still didn’t let her go. Instead, I flipped her body over, spreading her legs wide and grinding into her, taking her pussy with deep strokes. I couldn’t stop myself from pulling her hips against mine, moving her body with me.

“You’ll never forget,” I said to her, kissing her mouth, tasting her lips as I took her hands and pinned them at her sides. “You’ll never be able to forget this.”

“Yes, I will,” she protested, even as she moaned against my lips, even as her legs wrapped around my hips to pull me deeper.

“Fuck, nobody has ever taken my cock this good,” I breathed. “Nobody has ever needed it so bad before.”

“I don’t—” she panted. “I don’t need it.”

I nodded, kissing her again as I thrust inside of her. My hips were out of control and all I could think about was making her come, making her remember, making it impossible to forget.

“Yes, you do, baby,” I said. “God, you do.”

She moaned in response, whimpering when I started to rub her clit with my fingers. I was pounding hard into her pussy just the way she liked it, giving her what she wanted, even if it meant pushing her further away. She writhed underneath me and I felt her pussy twitch, clenching around my cock as she started to come. Instead of letting her, I pulled away, pulled completely out of her and looked down at her swollen, needy pussy. It was soaking wet and pink and perfect, and I wasn’t going to let this be the last time I got to touch her without taking the opportunity to taste her like I had the first day we’d kissed, back when everything had seemed simple and perfect.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to eat your pussy,” I said to her. She opened her mouth to protest but I put my finger to her lips. “Is this the last time I get to touch you, Lilian?”

She hesitated, a look of sadness passing over her face before she nodded.

“Then I’m going to taste you one more time before you go, okay?” I said. “Will you let me do that, baby?”

“Okay,” she breathed, and just the sound of that soft plea in her voice made my cock ache. I planted kisses down her body, pausing to suck on her nipples before I reached between her legs and planted a kiss on her pussy. She let out a sound of surprise when I took her hips in my hands and flipped her roughly over so that she was on her hands and knees.

“What—?” she asked, but was cut off when I positioned myself behind her, taking her pussy with my mouth from behind.

“Logan,” she protested, trying to squirm away from me, but I held her still and started lapping at her slit, burying my face between her legs. She spread them wide, her body tense as I started rubbing her clit with my fingers, admiring the sight of her ass in the air. I’d always wanted to see her this way and now was going to be my last shot—I wanted every fantasy fulfilled if I could get it. I licked and sucked at her pussy from behind while she buried her face in the pillow, occasionally grinding back against my mouth when I found a spot I knew she liked.

“Is this good?” I asked, sliding a finger deep into her pussy as I lapped at her clit. “Do you want more?”

“Yes,” she breathed. I laid down on my back then, pulling her hips over my face, pulling her pussy down against my mouth.

“Logan, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” I said gruffly, pulling her down when she tried to struggle away. “Ride my tongue, baby. Make yourself come in my mouth.”

She moaned, beginning to rub her pussy back and forth along my tongue, rubbing her clit against it. Her hips sped up and I started to lick in rhythm with the way she was moving, teasing her clit. It took her a few moments to grow bold enough to really start riding my mouth, but when she started to grind against me I thought I would come from how sexy it was to feel her lose control, lose all sense of herself.

“Oh,” she breathed when she found the perfect spot. “Oh, Logan—”

I slipped my tongue into her pussy then, tasting her at the source as she started to come. I only let her get to the edge before I moved my mouth away, making her groan in frustration as I got up and positioned myself behind her, aiming my cock into her pussy.

“This is what you’re going to remember most,” I said to her, sliding deep inside of her in one push. She groaned when I hit the back of her pussy, beginning to ride against me as I thrust inside of her. I pulled backward, pulling out of her, leaving her empty and desperate as her hips searched desperately for my cock. I teased her with it, using my hand to guide it up and down her slit, barely parting the lips of her pussy with it.

“Tell me you’re going to miss my cock,” I said to her, leaning down to speak close to her ear as I pushed just an inch into her pussy. She shook her head, trying to take me deeper, but I pulled away from her instead.

“Say it,” I said. “Or you’re not getting fucked anymore tonight.”

“Logan,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me, an angry look on her pretty face.

“Yes?” I asked her.

She took a deep breath, reaching back to take my cock in her hand, trying to guide it inside of her. I held her hands still, my cock growing even harder just thinking about how desperate she was, the fact that I had to fight her off. She groaned and I pushed in all the way, beginning to fuck her in earnest.

“Say it,” I said to her again, moving in and out of her, making her moan steadily as she took my cock. She was rubbing her clit as I fucked her, riding back against me, moaning rather than speaking the words that I wanted to hear. I stopped abruptly, pulling away from her, and she let out a cry of distress that was so sexy it made me ache.

“Please,” she said, looking back at me with desperation in her eyes.

I couldn’t help it then. It didn’t matter what she said. That look on her face was enough to make me need her, want to make her come all over me. I filled her up again, taking her hips in my hands and giving her exactly what she needed. Even if I didn’t get to hear the words, I knew they were true. Her body collapsed as I rode against her and my chest was pressed to her back, filling her again and again, my lips on the back of her neck.

“Come for me,” I said to her. “I want to feel you come all over my cock one more time, baby.”

“Logan,” she whimpered, and her orgasm crashed over her, her pussy clenching and tightening around me as she writhed. I continued to fuck her through it, then again, and again as she came for me over and over.

She collapsed underneath me and I let her go, pulling away from her regretfully. She sat up, reached for her robe and wrapped it around her body. She gave me a shy look.

“Thank you,” she said and started to get up to go back to her room.

“Lilian,” I said, taking her hand. “Tomorrow, I’ll get you a separate room. We won’t have to share. You can talk to the police and leave, if that’s what you want. I won’t bother you.”

“Okay,” she said softly, trying to pull her hand away, but I held her there.

“Sleep with me,” I said to her, pulling her back into the bed and against my body. “Don’t leave. Just one more night.”

“Okay,” she repeated.

I kissed her forehead, pulling her against me, and felt her fall asleep a few moments later. I stayed awake, holding her close to me, dreading the morning and the fact that it would mean we would be separated. I didn’t know Lilian’s secrets, didn’t know why she was so adamant about putting space between us, but I knew that there were some things I just couldn’t push with her. I held her through the night, not falling asleep until several hours later.

By the time I woke up, she was gone.

I got out of bed and got ready for the day, then went out of my room to find Lilian sitting in the living area, ready to go for the day. She looked at me when I walked in and a flush spread over her face when I met her eye, smiling at her.

“Good morning, Lily,” I said to her.

“Lilian,” she said. I stared at her for a moment, then nodded, resigned.

“I’m going to take you down to the front desk. They’ll give you a new room assignment.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Do you need help with your things?” I asked as she stood up, gathering her bags in her arms. It felt awkward in the room, like there were so many words unspoken between us. I wanted to beg her to stay, yet I knew I couldn’t. Lilian had too many secrets for me, too many hang-ups, reasons not to stay. I watched her as she grabbed her bags and followed me out of the room. She hesitated outside of the service elevator, staring at it warily.

“I’ll take the stairs,” she said, turning around, but I took her wrist and pulled her onto the elevator with me, linking our fingers as I had when she was scared on the ski-lift.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here.”

She stared up at me, watching my face as the elevator made its slow descent to the first floor. It was quiet, tense between us, and I wondered if this was the last moment I’d have alone with her. If her story about Michael checked out with the cops, I would have little more to do with her before she checked out. It was possible I’d only see her again in passing. The thought stabbed me in the chest as I looked down at her while the elevator door opened, both of us pausing before getting off. She looked for a moment like she wanted to say something but then changed her mind, stepping off the elevator. I led her over to the front desk, where a woman named Cindy was waiting.

“Hello, Mr. Mitchells,” Cindy said, looking up at me with a bright smile.

“Hi, Cindy,” I said to her. “This is Lilian Jackson. She’s been staying up in the suite. I’d like you to put her in another room, please.”

“Right now, sir?”

“Yes, please,” I said. She nodded, beginning to type something into her computer.

I turned to Lily.

“Thanks for letting me stay with you,” she said. “To get away from Michael.”

“Right,” I said. “I guess that’s taken care of.”

She didn’t say anything, but winced when I said the words. I instantly regretted them.

“Lily—” I began, but it was then that Cindy stood up, grabbing a key off the wall behind her.

“I found one that just opened this morning,” she said brightly, looking expectantly at Lily. Lily gave me one last look before following Cindy away to her new room. I shook my head, letting her go as instead I focused my attention on where the police had set up the night before. There was a large room on the first floor that was sometimes used to host weddings and other parties, but had been blocked off during construction and not used for at least a year. I’d given the room to the cops to go in and out as they needed, and when I knocked on the door I was beckoned in by Johnson.

I went inside to see both Johnson and his partner sitting at the large table in the middle, both drinking coffee. Eddie was in there, as well as Harold, and the four of them looked up at me when I walked in.

“Hello, Mr. Mitchells,” Johnson said, pulling out a chair and gesturing for me to join them. “Have a seat.”

“Okay,” I said, walking slowly across the room and sitting next to the cop. I had no idea why I was so nervous, but for some reason the way they were looking at me was making me deeply uncomfortable, as if I had done something wrong.

“What’s up?” I asked them when nobody said anything.

“We were just talking to these two here about the kid, Jerry. They say he’s fairly new.”

“He is,” I said. “I just hired him this year. That’s why I thought he’d gotten lost.”

“Where did you find him?”

“I—I haven’t found him. He’s still lost, as far as I know.”

“I mean, how did you find him to hire him?”

“He applied for the gig. Came out for an interview and I gave him the job. Why?”

“And he was supposed to be staying in general housing, right?” Johnson asked.

“As far as I know,” I said. Most of my workers stayed in general housing, though they were always given the option of actually staying in the retreat. Most of them said no—the housing was closer to the worksite and they didn’t apparently believe that the small, temporary apartments had been affected by the curse of the land. “Why are you asking me this? Did he show up at the apartments last night?”

“Your man here says Jerry hasn’t been staying at the apartments,” Johnson said, gesturing at Eddie. I raised my eyebrows at them.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He hasn’t stayed there a single night,” Eddie said. Harold nodded in agreement.

“We thought he’d been staying up here at the retreat with you,” said Eddie.

“No, he hasn’t,” I said. “You mean he hasn’t been there at all? He just shows up at the worksite?”

“Yeah, he’s always there when we show up,” Harold said.

“How did you not know that Jerry wasn’t staying at the apartments?” Johnson asked me. “Aren’t you in charge here?”

“He’s my employee, yes,” I said, frustrated. “But I had no idea—”

“We need to see whatever paperwork you have from when you hired him. Everything you have on file.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“This Jerry kid seems to be a ghost,” said Johnson.

I stared at him. “What?”

“Well, he doesn’t seem to exist. There’s no record of him in the apartments, nobody else has called him in missing—nobody knows anything about the kid.”

“I have all of his information upstairs in my office,” I said. “His tax forms, ID, everything.”

“Can you go get that for us?” Johnson asked. I nodded, standing up. His partner stood up as well to come with me and I raised my eyebrows.

“I need an escort?”

“We just want to make sure nothing gets lost in translation,” Johnson said casually, looking up at me with piercing eyes. “Things can get a little complicated around this place when we’re not looking.”

I swallowed, not responding to that, and led the woman out of the room. We went up the stairs and into my office, and I noticed that my hands were shaking as I unlocked the door. I felt nervous for some reason, tense, although I knew exactly what I was looking for in my office. I went inside, flipping the light on, and gestured for the policewoman to sit down while I looked. She stared at me sternly with one eyebrow raised and I shrugged, going to the corner where I kept the information about my employees. I knelt to the bottom drawer and unlocked it, pulling it open to find the folder with all of their information. I rifled through it, finding Jerry’s last name in the list.

“Here,” I said, pulling out the envelope that contained his tax information, copies of his social security card and ID. I handed it over to the woman, who opened it and looked inside.

“Are you kidding?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Listen, guy, nobody here has time for your ghost stories. You’ve called us out here enough. Just get us the folder and we’ll find the kid and move on.”

“That’s it,” I said to her, furrowing my brow. “That’s all of his information.”

She handed it back to me, giving me a dry look.

“Sir, this is empty.”

“No,” I said, taking it from her, my mind filling with confusion as I opened the envelope and peered inside to see it was empty. “No, I just hired this kid a few months ago. I just put it in here after I made a copy.”

“Apparently not,” said the woman. Her voice was sarcastic, as if she didn’t believe me and she was bored and annoyed with my story.

“It was all in there,” I insisted. “Look, I found the kid—he applied for the job and I hired him. It was all above board and legit. I have no idea what’s going on.”

She shook her head.

“Come on,” she said, and I swallowed, shutting the light off and locking my office before we made our way back to the room where Johnson was waiting with Harold and Eddie.

“No luck,” said the woman as Johnson met her eye when we walked in the door. “He’s got nothing.”

“I told you,” Eddie hissed.

“Eddie, come on,” said Harold.

“What?” I asked.

“Your boy here insists that Jerry is a ghost,” Johnson said, rubbing his hand over his mouth as he stood up. “And it looks like he’s right.”

“No,” I said. “No, he’s been working—he got lost in the woods—”

“Listen, pal,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure what the hell is going on around here, but I do know that you’ve had us chasing a ghost for the last twenty-four hours. I haven’t heard anything useful while I’ve been here except for a bunch of bullshit about a curse. This is a waste of our time.”

“So you’re just going to stop looking for Jerry?” I asked.

“As far as I can tell, Mr. Mitchells, there is no Jerry,” Johnson said. “Now, I understand that this place can get a little spooky up here but unless you have a real problem, I’m going to need you to stop calling us up here. We’ll get back to you when we finish with Mr. Banks’ autopsy.”

“When will that be?”

“Soon,” was all he said. I watched as they left, leaving me alone in the big room with Eddie and Harold. I glared over at them.

“What the fuck were you guys thinking?”

“Something’s going on here, boss,” Eddie said. “And you can keep denying it all you want, but something bad is happening at this place.”

I sighed. “We’ll need to get back to work tomorrow. In the meantime, keep an eye out for Jerry on your way back to the apartments.”

“We will,” Harold said, his voice grave.

They left then, and I was alone. I stood in the silence of the room, taking a deep breath, thinking about all that had happened and all I’d learned. It seemed like in just a few days everything had fallen apart around me, and I found myself considering the idea of a curse, of whether or not it could be true. I felt silly and stupid for thinking so but in that moment, I couldn’t think of another explanation for what was happening, at least not one that my rational mind was willing to accept as the truth.