Chapter 95

As soon as my foot hit sand, a wall of Paul's creeping darkness slammed into me. Invisible yet palpable, heavy enough to stick my lungs together. This lake, contained inside four walls of a stairway closet, definitely belonged to him. The air didn't smell damp, or like a lake at all, really. It didn't smell like much of anything except that cold heaviness that dragged chills down my arms whenever Paul was near.

My flesh scurried away, threatening to sweep me back into the devil, but I rooted my foot on the beach and forced myself to take another step. I should've been used to this awful sensation of Paul now since we were such good friends. We tried to open doors for each other and everything. Really, wasn't that what friendship was all about?

This friend needed to die, though, and oh my god this is why I have no friends.

Because I pretended my enemies were friends. Because I was stalling something awful instead of taking the three more steps I needed to the lake's edge.