Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

Also by Karina Halle

Darkhouse (EIT #1)

Red Fox (EIT #2)

The Benson (EIT #2.5)

Dead Sky Morning (EIT #3)

Lying Season (EIT #4)

On Demon Wings (EIT #5)

Old Blood (EIT #5.5)

The Dex-Files (EIT #5.7)

Into the Hollow (EIT #6)

And With Madness Comes the Light (EIT
#6.5)

Come Alive (EIT #7)

Ashes to Ashes (EIT #8)

Dust to Dust (EIT #9) –May 2014

Novels by Karina Halle

The Devil’s Metal (Devils #1)

The Devil’s Reprise (Devils #2)

Sins and Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)

On Every Street (An Artists Trilogy Novella
#0.5)

Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy #2)

Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3)

Coming Soon

Donners of the Dead

Love, in English

Ashes to Ashes

An Experiment in Terror Novel #8

By
Karina Halle

Copyright 2013 by Karina Halle

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Karina Halle

All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Cover design by Najla Qamber

Edited by Kara Malinczak

Metal Blonde Books
P.O. Box 845
Point Roberts, WA
98281 USA

Manufactured in the USA

For more information about the series
and author visit:
www.experimentinterror.com

For the GoGs and all your inappropriate help
with this – FF Forever

CHAPTER ONE

It’s been two months
since I first told Dex Foray that I loved him. Two months since
we’ve lived together, as an actual couple, in his Seattle
apartment. And two months since Rebecca Sims joined us as our
welcomed third wheel in the
Experiment in Terror
show. It
goes without saying that they’ve been the best two months of my
life.

But, like most things, it
hasn’t been perfect. My relationship with my family is now awkward
as all hell—I mean more so than it used to be, and that says a lot.
I’ll talk to my mom and dad maybe every two weeks, and it’s just
one of those
please shoot me
in the head
kind of moments where you’re
grasping for shit to say and your mouth is moving and suddenly
you’re talking about the weather or the latest celebrity scandal or
things you can’t even remember just to keep the conversation going,
just so it doesn’t lag and you don’t have to address the giant
flaming pink rollerblading elephant in the room.

Yeah … about that giant flaming
pink rollerblading elephant. That would be that I left my parent’s
house, where I had spent most of my twenty-three years, and decided
to move in with my partner. Dex. The guy that my parents absolutely
hated because I had an ill-timed fling with him back when he had a
girlfriend (no judging), and he turned into a dick right after I
slept with him (please no judging), and I ended up miscarrying his
baby (okay, the judging is inevitable). I’m not saying any of that
lightly because it pretty much ruined the fabric of my being and
introduced demonic possession into my life experiences, but I mean,
you can kind of understand why my parents think Dex Foray is public
enemy number one.

Obviously, they don’t
approve of my new life. I can tell that from the things they aren’t
saying and the questions they aren’t asking. They don’t even wonder
when or if I’m coming home; it’s just such a non-issue that it’s
become an issue. At least for me. I
want
them to care. I want them to
say something, even if it’s just to scream at me.

The only person that I talk to
truthfully on a daily basis (even if it’s just mainly through
texts) is my younger sister Ada. She’s happy for me, happy that
things are going well with Dex (even though she often starts the
conversation with, “You guys still together? Yes? Okay cool,”) but
she doesn’t pull back from telling me how badly she wants me to
come back home, even just for a visit.

The thing is, I’m totally
scared. One part of me wants to go back, to try and smooth things
over and make things right. Maybe if they see Dex again, months
later and in a better context, they’ll learn to like him. To see
the things I see. To see how well he treats me. And I want to see
Ada and hug her and make her feel like she doesn’t have to face my
parents alone. But the other half of me thinks it could be a
mistake—that they’d never open up to him, and I’d regret even
trying to make amends. I could make things worse.

I needed a sign.

“
Ouch, Jesus,”
I swore at the stabbing pain at my wrist. I glared up at the burly,
bearded tattoo artist who was glaring back at me.

“
Try not to
flinch,” he said gruffly, his gloved hand hovering over my bared
wrist.

“
You’re almost
done, honey,” Rebecca said in her soothing British accent, patting
my other hand. “Few more minutes. Looks fab.”

I sighed and tried to relax my
body. Now that I wasn’t daydreaming, everything was very real. I
was with Rebecca, lying on my back in a Seattle tattoo parlor,
getting some ink on my wrist. My first tattoo, and though it didn’t
hurt as much as I thought it would, it was still extremely
uncomfortable. It probably didn’t help that it was on one of the
more sensitive areas. I was just lucky I decided to go with one
color of ink—blue—instead of getting it filled in.

Oh yeah, I was getting a tattoo
of an anchor. Cliché, I know, but I got it for Dex. After all, he
had a tattoo inspired by me on his shoulder, and I figured it was
only fair. And, you know, he was my anchor. When he’d given me the
anchor silly band back on D’Arcy Island, that stupid little gesture
meant so much to me. Then, when I’d ripped it off after, well, the
“incident,” I’d missed that symbol. Through all the ups and downs
we’d gone through, in the end, he was still my rock. And an anchor
was a hell of a lot sexier than getting a big ass boulder tatted on
you.

“
He’s going to
be so surprised,” Rebecca said as the tattoo machine resumed its
buzzing.

I ground my teeth together
against the vibrating prickles. “Uh huh. I hope so.”

I asked Rebecca to accompany me
here so I wouldn’t have to go through it alone. I wanted it to be a
surprise for Dex, so I just told him we were going out and doing
girly things. I know his dirty mind was probably imagining us
heading to some International Pillow-Fighting Convention, and a
tattoo parlor was the last place he’d think of. I wasn’t really the
tattoo type—my interests in life were so wavering and fleeting, but
my love for Dex was as permanent as ink. I wanted him to know
that.

“
Okay, you’re
done,” the man said, lifting away the needle, the room growing
temporarily quiet without the constant buzz.

“
For
real?”

He grunted in response and
motioned for me to sit up. I slowly did so and stared at my left
wrist. It wasn’t bleeding like I thought it would be since I’d felt
him periodically dabbing it with cloth as he worked. The tattoo was
shiny and raised, the skin around it red, but it looked beautiful.
Simple but beautiful. And I suddenly felt infinitely cooler.

I looked up at Rebecca for her
approval as the artist started wrapping it in black plastic. Her
matte red lips were stretched into a smile, her eyes sparkling with
delight. In fact, she looked borderline ecstatic which I found
almost odd.

“
He’s
going to
love
it,” she said. “Really, really. It’s going to
mean so much to him.”

I smiled. “Good.”

It’s not that Dex didn’t know
how I felt about him. After what happened to us in New Orleans, and
how he’d almost died right before my eyes and I almost lost him in
so many ways, I’d had verbal diarrhea of the lovey-dovey kind. But
for some reason, at times I could tell it was hard for Dex to
believe me. When I told him I loved him, he had a knack for turning
it into a joke, like, “You say that to all the boys,” and while he
played it off in his cheeky way, I could tell it came from
somewhere. I hoped the tattoo would ease that for him.

Like I said, they’d been the
best two months of my life, but things weren’t perfect. It’s hard
to truly appreciate things when somewhere in the back of your mind
you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I swung my legs off the table,
admiring even the black plastic around my wrist. That, combined
with my new twelve-hole forest green Doc Martens and my leather
jacket that was too hot for the surprisingly warm May weather, I
felt better than I had in weeks. See, along with the whole impeding
feeling of doom that I couldn’t shake (and I had no idea what it
was about either), I’d gained some weight after moving in with Dex.
I could blame his diet all I wanted, but the fact was he ate fairly
well and still went to the gym every day, so there goes that
excuse. I knew they were “happy pounds,” like the in-love
equivalent of the freshman fifteen, but it still had me a bit
bummed out. Dex loved me the way I was, but I still felt like I had
to be something he could show off, something like his ex-girlfriend
Jenn. I’d lost the shape I worked hard for over Christmas, and I
always had the fear that one day he’d realize I wasn’t good enough
for him.

“
Come on,”
Rebecca said, tugging on my arm toward the cash register. “Let’s
get you home to your man.” She clicked her way over to the counter
in her sky-high red heels, her small ass sashaying in her pencil
skirt. Rebecca was the opposite of me. Since she and Emily broke
up, she’d been doing nothing but losing weight, something she
didn’t need to begin with.

It didn’t help that when we had
our last meeting with Jimmy Kwan at Shownet over Experiment in
Terror, he brought up the fact that Rebecca should be in front of
the camera. He wasn’t trying to boot me off, so he said, but that
two hot girls were better than one. Luckily Rebecca refused, saying
she was only good as a production manager and that her days of
hosting ended when Wine Babes did. And even though Rebecca was his
good friend, Dex agreed. I probably would have hit him if he
didn’t.

Ever since we’d come back
from New Orleans, we’d done about five shows together as a
“threesome.” It wasn’t until the fourth show—investigating the
haunted town of St. Augustine in Florida—that we really found our
rhythm and clicked. Though filming hadn’t changed much, Dex and I
had to adjust to a more regimented schedule, running on Rebecca’s
time now and not our own. I had to admit it helped—we never wasted
too much time in one space, and we were always in the most
opportune areas, but there was a learning curve all the same. We
had to stop being “Perry and Dex” and remember that Rebecca was
counting on us as well. Then there was the fact that Rebecca
wasn’t, well, she wasn’t like
us
. She rarely saw anything
supernatural, and I know it started to bug her too when Dex and I
would be freaking out or talking to ghosts, and she’d be staring at
nothing. By the fifth episode, a haunted library in Eureka, Rebecca
decided she’d only be around the actual filming when we needed a
hand—otherwise she’d be somewhere else and leave the ghosts to
us.

“
I wonder
where we’re filming next,” Rebecca commented as we walked down the
street to her car.

I shot her an odd look,
wondering if she’d heard my thoughts. I still had this tendency to
project my thoughts and lately I’d been picking up on other
people’s. It usually happened with Dex, though on occasion I’d find
it in some random person. But Rebecca had never been on the
receiving end of Perry telepathy. At least not yet.

“
Did you hear
what I was thinking?” I asked.

She smiled. “No, and believe
me, the day I hear you, you’ll know. It’s just we both know that
Dex is having that meeting with Jimmy today. I’m assuming it won’t
be about me being a host since I nearly ripped him a bloody new
one. Hopefully it will be another assignment.” She unlocked the
door to her hatchback and I got in in the passenger seat. “I mean,
it’s been three weeks since we returned from California and I know
the library episode wasn’t a complete disaster.”