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Caloroga Shark Media.
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Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly and Halloween Possession. This
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is episode one, the Static between Us.
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I should tell you right now that I don't believe
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in love at first sight. I'm thirty two, divorced, and
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I investigate disappearances for my true crime podcast. I know
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what happens to women who lose themselves in men. But
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October changed everything, and it started with something as simple
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as static electricity. Have you ever touched someone and felt
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the sh shock travel somewhere? It shouldn't, not just your finger,
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but deeper. That's what happened when Ethan handed me the
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keys to the Victorian house on Essex Street. Our fingers
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brushed just barely, and I felt it in my chest,
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behind my ribs, like my heart was a radio suddenly
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finding a station it didn't know existed. I pulled my
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hand back, of course, made some joke about the dry
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October air, but he was looking at me with these
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dark eyes. God, why do they always have dark eyes?
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And I knew he'd felt it too, that impossible electricity,
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that recognition of something you can't name. You'll hear about
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the missing women, he said, not a question. His voice
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did something to my spine, like fingertips trailing down vertebrae.
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I told myself it was just because I was tired
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from the drive from New York. I told myself a
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lot of things that turned out to be lies. Let
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me back up. I'm Mara Chen and my podcast, Vanished Voices,
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has two million subscribers who trust me to find the
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truth about missing women. Three days ago, I arrived in
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Salem to investigate a pattern. Three women, three Octobers, three disappearances.
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The police say there's no connection, but I've built a
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career on finding patterns that men in uniform miss. The
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Victorian House was my starting point. The last missing woman,
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Rebecca Torres, had toured it the day she vanished. The
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Salem Halloween Festival runs historic tours all October, and Ethan
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Blackwood manages the properties. I'd expected some aging history buff Instead,
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I got six feet of lean muscle in a charcoal henley,
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with carpenter's hands and a voice that made me forget
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my first question. The house gets to some people, he
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was saying, leading me up the narrow stairs. I was
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trying to focus on his words, not the way his
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genes fit or how he smelled like cedar and coffee
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and something else, something like rain before lightning strikes, especially
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sensitive types. You're not sensitive, are you? The way he
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said sensitive made me flush, like it was something intimate,
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something he could tell about me just by looking. I'm
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a journalist, I said, my professional voice, a little too sharp,
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ideal in facts. He turned on the landing, and suddenly
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we were too close, in that narrow space. I could
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see the gold flex in his brown eyes, could feel
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the heat coming off his body, the cool October afternoon facts,
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he repeated, and his mouth did something that wasn't quite
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a smile.
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Right.
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My phone buzzed, Lily, my sister's timing has always been catastrophic.
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Can I crash with you for a few days? Derek
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and I had done for real this time. I stepped
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back from ethan thumb flying over my screen. Lily lived
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in Boston, only forty minutes away, but she might as
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well have asked to stay with me on Mars. I
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was here to work, not to nurse her through another
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breakup with her toxic on again, off again boyfriend. I'm
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in Salem for work, staying at the Hawthorn Inn. Perfect.
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I'll drive up tonight. I need to get away from everything.
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I looked up to find Ethan watching me, head tilt,
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said slightly, like he was listening to something only he
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could hear. Sister, He asked, how did you I stopped.
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My expression must have given it away. That's all She's
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coming to visit during Halloween's season in Salem. He turned
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and continued up the stairs. She must be running from
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something pretty bad. Rebecca Torres had stood in this same
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hallway a year ago. I tried to focus on that,
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on why I was here, but my body was betraying
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me with every step. Each time Ethan moved, I caught
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another angle of him, the stretch of fabric across his shoulders,
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the way his hair curled slightly at his neck. I
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was acutely aware of my own body in a way
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that made me angry. The weight of my breasts under
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my sweater, the sensitivity of my skin, the heat pooling
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low in my belly. This is exactly what I'd promised
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myself wouldn't happen again after my divorce. No more losing myself,
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no more men who made me forget my own name.
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This is where she was last seen, Ethan said, opening
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a door to a small bedroom, the tour guide said,
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Rebecca seemed fascinated by this room, stayed behind when the
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group moved on. The room was perfectly preserved, victorian rose, wallpaper,
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brass bed, heavy velvet curtains. But something else was here too.
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The air felt charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
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The hairs on my arms stood up. Do you feel that,
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I asked, before I could stop myself. Ethan stepped closer,
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too close. Feel what the electricity? The static? Maybe, he said, quietly,
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more sensitive than you think. Our eyes met, and suddenly
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I could hear something impossible, a woman's voice, faint and desperate,
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like a radio signal from very far away. Help me, please, someone,
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help me. I gasped and stumbled backward. Ethan's hand shot
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out to steady me, gripping my elbow, and the moment
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his skin touched mine through my sweater, the voice became
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clear as a bell. He's coming back. October brings him back.
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Don't let him find the others like us. You heard her,
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Ethan said, It wasn't a question. His hand was still
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on my arm, and where he touched me, my skin
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felt like it was dissolving into pure energy. You heard, Rebecca.
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I jerked away from him, my heart hammering, that's not
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that's not possible. You investigate missing women, don't you want
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to know what happened to her? I want to know
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why you're not surprised, I shot back, Why you're acting
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like hearing voices is normal. He leaned against the doorframe,
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blocking my exit without seeming to This close, I could
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see the pulse in his throat steady where mine was racing.
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Because I've been hearing them since the first woman disappeared
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three years ago, and because I've been waiting for someone
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else who could hear them too. My logical brain was
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screaming at me to leave. This was crazy trauma response,
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auditory hallucinations, something. But my body wouldn't move. Every cell
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felt oriented toward him, like he was magnetic north. Why
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I managed, because whatever took them gets stronger in October,
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and because he paused, his eyes dropping to my mouth
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for just a second. I think it it hunts people
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like us, people like us. The words hung between us,
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intimate as a confession. My phone rang lily again. Mara,
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I'm an hour out. You have to promise not to
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judge me, but I think there's something wrong with me
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like medically wrong. I keep shocking everything. My laptop died,
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my phone keeps glitching, and Derek said kissing me felt
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like licking a battery. I looked at Ethan, who was
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watching me with those dark, knowing eyes. Just get here safe,
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I told her, we'll figure it out. When I hung up,
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Ethan said, your sister too. Two. I laughed, but it
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came out shaky. I don't even know what this is. This.
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He pushed off from the door frame and moved toward me,
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slow and deliberate. My body responded immediately, nipples tightening, breath
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catching that liquid heat spreading through me like honey or this.
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He raised his hand, not touching me, just holding it
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an inch from my cheek. The air between us crackled,
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and I could feel him, not his hand, but him.
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His desire hit me like a physical thing, making me gasp.
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It was overwhelming, invasive, intoxicating. I could feel what he
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wanted to do to me, could feel his struggle for control,
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could feel the way I affected him or without a
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single touch. Stop, I whispered, but I didn't step back.
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I'm not doing anything, he said, and his voice was rougher.
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Now that's all you bullshit. But even as I said it,
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I knew he was right. I was the one leaning
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toward him, drawn like a moth to flame. I was
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the one whose body was singing with want. He dropped
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his hand, stepped back, and the loss of that almost
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touch left me aching. There's a pattern, he said, or business.
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Suddenly the missing women all had this ability. They could
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feel things others couldn't. Electromagnetic fields, people's emotions, echoes of
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the past, and in October, when the veil is thin,
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that's an old Salem expression. Something notices them. You're telling
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me there's a what a monster that hunts psychic women.
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I'm telling you that Rebecca Torres could do what you
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just did. So could Emma Martinez the year before, and
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Sarah Kim the year before that. His jaw tied, and
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they're all gone. My investigative instincts finally kicked in, overriding
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my body's confusion. How do you know all this? Because
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my family has been in Salem for three hundred years.
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We've seen this before. My grandmother called it the October hollow,
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something that feeds on people with our particular sensitivity. He
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met my eyes and because I tried to warn Rebecca.
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She didn't believe me either. You knew her. Something flickered
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across his face, guilt, pain, something deeper. She was drawn
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to me the same way you are. It's not real attraction.
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It's electromagnetic resonance, our abilities recognizing each other. The words
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stung more than they should have. So this feeling is
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just what physics? No, he moved closer again, and my
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traitor's body responded instantly. The poll is physics. What we
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do about it, that's choice. And Mara, the way he
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said my name made my insides clench. I'm trying very
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hard to make the right choice here, which is to
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keep you alive through October. My phone buzzed, Lily fifteen
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minutes out and Mara, there's someone following me. They've been
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behind me since I left Boston. The temperature in the
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room seemed to drop. Ethan pulled out his phone, typed
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something quickly, tell her to come straight to the Witch Museum.
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It's public, well lit. I'll meet you both there. Why
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would you Because if your sister has the same ability,
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she's already being hunted. And because he paused at the door,
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not looking back, I couldn't save the others. Maybe this
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time will be different. He left me standing in that
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charged room, my body still humming from his almost touch,
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Rebecca's voice echoing in my mind. I looked around the
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perfectly preserved Victorian bedroom and wondered which of us would
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be the next to disappear. My reflection in the antique
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mirror looked flushed, pupils, dilated, like I'd been thoroughly kissed
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instead of just nearly touched. This was exactly what I'd
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sworn wouldn't happen. No more dangerous men, no more losing control.
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But as I headed for my car to meet Lily,
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I could still feel Ethan's presence on my skin like static,
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and I knew I was already lost. The only question
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was whether I'd survive October. To regret it, I should
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have left Salem that night, packed up Lily, and driven
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back to New York, where things made sense, where touch
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was just touch, and October was just a month. Instead,
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I drove toward the Witch Museum, toward my sister, toward him,
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toward whatever was hunting women like us. The radio in
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my rental car burst into static as I turned onto
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Essex Street. Through the white noise, I could have sworn.
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I heard Rebecca's voice again, stronger this time. He makes
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you feel alive, so you don't notice you're dying. I
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turned the radio off, but the warning was already under
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my skin, mixing with the want that wouldn't let me go.
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Three women had disappeared in October. As I pulled into
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the museum parking lot and saw Ethan waiting under the
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street light, beautiful and dangerous and impossible, I had the
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terrible certainty that if I wasn't careful, I'd be the fourth.
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But when he looked up and our eyes met through
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the windshield, that electromagnetic pull sang through my bones like
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a siren's call. My body didn't care about danger. It
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only knew that he was the answer to a question
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I'd never known to ask. I was in so much trouble,
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and October had just begun.