My heart was hammering hard in my chest, hard enough to hurt. There was truth in her words, I could feel it in my bones, and the truth would kill me if I let it.
“What do you mean, if we’re lucky?”
Her face grew very grave, very solemn. Maximus straightened up beside me, clearing his throat.
“Dex,” he said carefully, licking his lips. “Because we don’t know what makes you…you…we don’t know what would happen if Perry got pregnant again. We don’t know if the child would be a child at all. We already know that it would have enough power on its own to attract hosts that don’t want to leave. It wasn’t an accident that Perry got possessed. The pregnancy, the combination of you and her together, it was bound to happen. If there was a next time, I don’t think Perry would survive it. The next entity would stay in her, forever, and take the child too. I’m sorry.”
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly I couldn’t even see. The world in front of me clouded over and inside I was drowning in my sorrow and sadness. Because I believed what they were saying, even though every part of me was begging for me to ignore them, to discount them, to tell them they were liars and that they were wrong. But I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew in the deep-seat of my soul that everything they had told me, from what Maximus really was, to the fact that I had a little something extra in my blood, to the fact that Perry would probably not survive another pregnancy, at least not by me, was the absolute truth. I’d never been handed so many soul-crushing, reality-bending, life-altering bombs before in all my years.
But what killed me more than anything was knowing that Perry and I could never start a family together. I could never put my seed in her and watch it grow, never be a happy, expectant couple. It wasn’t like this was something I’d even discussed with her, for obvious reasons, but it was my dream that I secretly held on to and held on to tight. Now I’d have to let it go.
I’d have to let her go.
Maximus put his large freckled hand on my shoulder. “It’s for the best, you know it is. It’s for her best.”
Maryse got out of her chair and went to rummage through a shelf, while I sat there absolutely dumbfounded.
I looked at Maximus, for once wanting his advice. “What do I do? How should I tell her?”
He shook his head and gave me a gentle smile. “You can’t tell her. You know you can’t. Perry is stubborn as anything and the moment you tell her something can’t happen, she’ll try and make it happen. To tell her this, to tell her that this part of her future is over, it would kill her. Crush her.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” I repeated, feeling crushed myself, my internal organs being put through a vice.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said.
Maryse came back, placing a small vial of oil on the table and a Ziploc bag full of hand-rolled cigarettes. “The oil is Van Van oil—lemon verbena—it will help protect you, whether now from zombies and black magic or from dark forces in the future. The cigarettes are to get through it all. There’s some special herbs in there too, ones that might help clear your mind a bit.” I took the oil and the cigarettes, folding up the bag and sticking it in the pocket of my jeans.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice failing me as I got out of my seat.
“You’re welcome. Now I hope you take some time over the next few days and be kind to yourself, Dex. These are some large but important truths and your mind needs a way to work around them, to fit them into the life you thought you knew. Don’t rush anything or make any rash decisions. Just be and feel and ask for help when you need it.”
I tried to smile but failed. “It’s kind of hard to take some time for myself when we’re trying to film ghosts and zombies.”
“Ignore the ghosts and the zombies. Just go home.” She gestured to the top of the stairs. “Please show yourselves out and tell Rose and Perry that I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.”
We nodded and climbed the stairs out of her Voodoo cellar. An hour ago, zombies were the biggest concern in my life. Now my biggest concern put that one to shame.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Perry and Rose were understandably anxious and suspicious when Maximus and I returned from the cellar. They asked us non-stop about what happened downstairs and I kept having to lie, over and over again, with Maximus picking up the slack. We told them that she thought both of us could have information about the zombies and that she put us under hypnosis to see if there was anything we could recall at the house. We told the girls that she made them leave because they would have been too distracting for us and that Perry couldn’t be hypnotized because Maryse sensed too much resistance in her. The hypnosis didn’t turn up anything that we hadn’t already told her. It was amazing how easy I was able to tell that lie, even right to Perry’s face, and it gave me a sick sense of hope that I’d be able to keep the real truths buried.
And as for that, I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was keep a little distance from her, which was actually quite easy. I had trouble even looking at her face without getting lost in the beauty, lost in the feelings, the love I had for her. I was dying slowly inside and tired as hell. The minute we got back to the B&B I went straight to sleep. I could tell Perry wanted to talk or to even get in my pants, but I couldn’t do it. I mumbled something about it being the middle of the night and passed right out, swept away by blissful sleep.
The next morning, Perry was trying to rouse me awake but the minute my mind latched onto the horrible memories of last night, I wanted to stay in bed. I couldn’t deal with this. I couldn’t make sense of this, not with Perry there.
Thankfully, yes thankfully, Maximus knocked on our door, telling us he wanted to go through the footage from last night and see if we had enough for a show. If so, we’d stick around another day and shoot some atmosphere shots and then head home, screw the zombies.
I never thought I’d say this, but I wanted Maximus around me. He was the wedge between us, that awkward buffer, and now I wanted him back. I wanted him between me and Perry while I figured out what to do. I wanted him to keep her mind occupied so she didn’t start worrying about what was wrong with me, why I was so quiet and avoiding contact with her and keeping my distance. He knew it too. When he came in the room with the equipment, he’d come in with breakfast that he pilfered from downstairs, and he didn’t leave while we quickly got ready. Perry was fully-clothed in her pajamas, but looked pissed off that he was there and interrupting her morning time. I hadn’t slept nude, so I just pulled on the pair of jeans by my bed, slipped on a clean t-shirt from my bag and was set.