The Devil I Called Stepfather

§PROLOGUE

The rot was the first thing I always remembered.

A damp, earthy decay that clung to the back of my throat, the taste of my own slow death.

It was the smell of the cellar, the place where my life had ended, over and over again.

In the dream, my world was a ten-by-ten-foot square of packed dirt and sweating stone walls.

My gown, once a cloud of ivory silk and lace, was a shredded, mud-caked rag.

The diamond on my finger, the one Walton had slid on with a promise of forever, was gone.

In its place was a plain, cold band of iron.

A shackle.

A guttural sound echoed from the corner of the cellar, a mindless, happy gurgle from the thing they called my husband.

Mickey Garvey.

His eyes, vacant and milky, fixed on me.

He crawled closer, his useless limbs dragging through the grime.

A thin line of drool traced a path from his slack jaw.

And from the top of the cellar stairs, a shadow fell over me, and a voice, Brenda Garvey’s voice, rasped down into the darkness.

"Be a good girl for my boy now, Corinne. Time to make another one."

The scream was silent, trapped in my throat like a shard of glass.

My hands flew to my belly, round and tight beneath the rags.

Not again.

Please, not again.

The dream always ended the same way.

With the cellar door creaking open, and the monster, my "husband," reaching for me with a filthy hand.

And me, unable to do anything but pray for a death that had already come.

§01

A piercing chime sliced through the nightmare.

Not the groan of cellar hinges, but the clean, digital sound of my alarm.

My eyes flew open.

Sunlight, warm and golden, streamed through the bedroom window of my apartment.

My apartment. Not the cellar.

My hands shot to my stomach.

Flat.

Smooth.

No swell of a life I hadn't chosen.

I scrambled out of bed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

My reflection stared back from the full-length mirror—a woman I hadn't seen in years.

Corinne Beckett. Twenty-eight years old. Hair the color of dark honey, eyes wide with a terror no one else could see.

I was wearing an old, soft t-shirt, not rags.

My skin was clean.

There were no scars.

My gaze fell to the digital clock on my nightstand.

The glowing red numbers read: 7:00 AM. August 7th.

The day before my wedding.

I was back.

Somehow, impossibly, I was back.

A sob, thick and ragged, tore from my throat.

It was real. The cellar, the abuse, the endless cycle of forced pregnancies, the slow, agonizing descent into madness and death. It had all been real.

And now, it was all in the future. A future I had one chance to prevent.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

A text from Walton.

*Can't wait to make you Mrs. Rhodes tomorrow. I know we’re not supposed to see each other, but I’m already counting the seconds.*

Walton.

His name was a lifeline.

I had to warn him. I had to make him believe me.

Before I could dial, a knock echoed from my front door.

A soft, neighborly rap-rap-rap.

My blood ran cold.

I knew that knock.

"Cori, dear?" a sickly-sweet voice called from the hallway. "Just your neighbor, Brenda Garvey! I brought you a little something for your big day!"

The monster was at my door.

And my hell was about to begin all over again.

§02

For a moment, I was paralyzed, the phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip.

The friendly knock on the door was a war drum, signaling the start of a battle I had already lost once.

"Go away!" The words were a choked whisper, barely audible even to me.

"Don't be shy now, dear," Brenda’s voice oozed through the wood. "It's just me."

Just her. The architect of my ruin.

I backed away from the door, my mind racing. I couldn't face her. Not yet. I had to get to Walton.

Ignoring the persistent knocking, I grabbed my keys and wallet and slipped into the small back bedroom that served as my office.

I eased the window open.

The fire escape.

My heart pounded as I scrambled down the iron stairs, hitting the alleyway at a run.

I didn't stop until I was blocks away, hailing a taxi with a shaking hand.

The entire ride, my mind was a vortex of fragmented horrors. Brenda’s triumphant sneer. Mickey’s vacant eyes. The cold weight of a newborn being pulled from my arms.

By the time the taxi pulled up to Walton's neat suburban house, I was a wreck.

I hammered on his door, my fists beating a desperate rhythm. "Walt! Walton, open the door! Please!"

The door swung open to reveal Walton Rhodes, my Walton, his brow furrowed with concern.

He was dressed in workout clothes, a half-eaten protein bar in his hand. His kind, steady eyes widened at the sight of me.

"Cori? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Worse," I gasped, stumbling into his arms, burying my face in his chest.

He held me tight, his strong arms a fortress around my shaking body. "Hey, hey, talk to me. What happened?"

I pulled back, my hands gripping his shirt. "We can't get married tomorrow."

His face fell. "What? Cori, what are you talking about?"

"The wedding," I said, my words tumbling over each other. "It's a trap. She's going to be there. Brenda Garvey. She's going to ruin everything."

He looked utterly bewildered. "Brenda? Your neighbor? What does she have to do with anything?"

This was it. The moment that would decide everything.

"She's going to tell everyone I'm already married," I forced the words out, tasting bile. "To her son. Mickey."

Walton stared at me, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. "Her... her son? The one who's... severely disabled? Cori, that's insane."

"I know it doesn't make any sense!" I cried, my voice cracking. "But it's going to happen. She'll have papers. A video. Everyone will believe her. They'll take me away from you, Walt. And they'll... they'll kill me."

He gently took my face in his hands. "Corinne. Breathe. You had a nightmare. A really, really bad nightmare."

"It wasn't a nightmare!" I insisted, my voice rising with hysteria. "It was a memory. I've lived this already. I died, Walton. And I came back. I came back to stop it."

I saw the conflict in his eyes. The love warring with logic. He was a man of science, of tangible proof. And I was telling him I was a ghost from the future.

I couldn't let him dismiss it.

"She paid off my student loans," I blurted out, grabbing for a detail from the coming storm. "Fifty thousand dollars. That's what she'll claim. She'll say it was a payment for the marriage."

Walton froze.

His expression shifted from concern to sharp focus.

"How... how did you know that?" he asked slowly.

§03

"Know what?" I sobbed, my voice ragged with desperation.

"Your student loans," Walton said, his voice low and intense. "They were paid off. In full. A month ago. An anonymous benefactor. I thought it was a clerical error. The university couldn't explain it. How did you know?"

Hope, fragile and bright, pierced through my terror.

He saw it. He saw a piece of the impossible puzzle click into place.

"It wasn't an error, Walt," I whispered, my eyes locked on his. "It was the price. The price for me."

The last shred of doubt in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, hard fury I had never seen before.

He pulled me into his arms again, but this time it wasn't just comfort. It was a vow.

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