Angie headed back to the kitchen.  She paused as she entered the room.  Rollie was sound asleep, his head pillowed on his arms, a look of peace and happiness on his face.  She went over to him and touched his face.  He awoke and looked up at her with drowsy eyes.

“Hey,” he mumbled sleepily.  “I was having the most wonderful dream.  We were--”  He stopped abruptly, coming fully awake.  His eyes shifted away from hers, and he cleared his throat.

“What?  What were we doing?”  Angie asked, very curious about the dream.

“Um, nothing.  It was just a dream.”  There was no way that he was going to tell her they’d been kissing and holding each other in the dream.

Angie considered pushing Rollie into telling her about the dream, but there were more important things to deal with right now.  “That guy I just called said that you should get out of the house, that it’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“I told you that I don’t intend to run away.”

“I know.  He’s flying out first thing in the morning.”

Rollie nodded.  “I guess this means that we won’t be going back to New York tomorrow.”

“We still can.  We can still leave and just forget using this house.”  Angie sighed when she saw the expression on her partner’s face.  “Okay, I won’t mention it again.”

“I should think that you’d want to find out what’s going on here too,” Rollie said.  “After all,  you’re the one who believes in all this supernatural stuff.”

“It’s more important to me that you’re safe.”

Rollie reached over the table and squeezed her hand.  “I’ll make you a deal.  We won’t set foot near this place until the guy arrives, okay?”

“Okay.”

They were heading for the door when Rollie remembered that he never did take a look at the study.

“It can wait until tomorrow, Rol,” Angie told him.

“I’d rather do it before he gets here.  I doubt that I’d be able to check the room with an eye for filming with him poking around in it.”

“Well, okay, but I’m going with you.”

Rollie smiled.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, sweetie.”

They made their way to the study.  As Rollie reached for the door handle, he was hit with an odd feeling.

“What’s wrong?” Angie asked, noticing his hesitation.

“I don’t know.  I just got this weird feeling for a second.”  Shrugging, the Aussie turned the knob and opened the door.  Angie entered the room first, Rollie following a pace behind.  The Aussie took two steps into the room and stopped dead.  “Angie, something’s not right here,” he said in a hushed tone.  “Something--”

Rollie drew in his breath sharply.  An oppressive feeling of rage and hatred was welling up inside the room.  The emotions pushed down on him, crushing him.  They started filling him, overwhelming his senses, making it hard to breathe, to feel anything except their dark power.  Panicking, Rollie tried to escape the room as he had Nicholas’s bedroom, but, again, he could not move.  He could do nothing as his vision started going black.

At the sound of Rollie’s voice, Angie turned and looked at him.  He was staring sightlessly into the room, not moving a muscle, except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest.  Then, before her eyes, she saw his expression transform from panic to something dark and dangerous.  His face hardened, his eyes glittering with anger as his hands curled into tight fists.

Feeling very uneasy, Angie walked back to Rollie and took hold of his arm.  “Rol, what--”

The Aussie jerked away from her violently.  His eyes turned on her, and they no longer looked like Rollie’s eyes.  They were nearly black, an almost crazed fury glowing in them with frightening intensity.  Angie gasped, her heart skipping a beat.  For one brief instant, she thought he was going to strike her.  Then something happened that sent icy terror running through her.

“Don’t touch me, Hannah,” Rollie hissed, his voice deep, the Australian accent gone.

Angie took a hasty step away from Rollie, suddenly more afraid than she’d ever been in her life.  She wanted to flee in panic.  Only her fear for Rollie’s safety kept her from doing so.

Both afraid to run and afraid to stay, Angie watched as Rollie’s eyes seemed to fog over.  Then he clutched at his head as if he was in pain.  He swayed on his feet, almost falling.  When his eyes opened, the rage was gone.  They looked like his own eyes again.

Rollie’s body gave a deep shudder.  He was dizzy, and he felt like his brain had gone through an electric mixer.  He looked at Angie, seeing the paleness of her features and the fear in her eyes.  She was staring at him as if he was a creature from one of their horror movies.

“Angie, what . . . what happened?  Why are you looking at me like that?”

Angie tried to get control of her fear.  “Rol, you . . . you weren’t you for a moment there.”

“What do you mean I wasn’t me?”  Then he realized what she was saying.  “Oh, God.  Did it happen again?  Was I Nicholas again?”

Angie shook her head.  “No, Rollie, you were him, Robert Powell.  You called me Hannah.”

The Aussie’s face went white.  “My God.  Did I hurt you?”

Angie shook her head.  “No, you didn’t touch me.”

Rollie quickly left the study, striding down the hall as if demons were on his tail.  He took the stairs two at a time and headed out the front door, Angie running to keep up with him.  He didn’t stop until he was in the garden.  There, he halted abruptly, slumping against a tree.  “I might have hurt you,” he said, covering his face.  “I could have--”  His voice choked off.  The Aussie dropped his hands and looked at her intently.  “Angie, you have to get out of here.  You have to get as far away from me as you can, back to New York.  I can’t control what’s happening to me.  I can’t even be sure anymore that staying away from the house will stop this.  Next time, I could . . . I could hurt you.”

“No, I’m not leaving, not unless you come with me.  There is no way that I’m going to abandon you.”

“Angie, please.”

“No!  Either we both leave or we both stay.”

Rollie sat down heavily on the bench, resting his head in his hands.  “I don’t think I can leave,” he whispered.

Angie sat beside him.  “What do you mean?”

Rollie lifted his head to look at her, his eyes full of torment.  “Last night, something happened that scared the hell out of me.”

“What?”

“I had a dream.  I saw Robert Powell after he’d murdered his family.  It was so horrible.  The blood was everywhere.  When I woke up. . . .  Angie, when I woke up, I was here, in the house.  I drove here in my sleep.  I have no memory of coming here.  When I realized where I was, I was so terrified.”

“My God,” Angie whispered.  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want to scare you.  Angie, something drew me to this house, and I have a terrible feeling that, until I know what’s causing this, why it’s happening, I’ll never get free of it.  It’ll keep . . . haunting me.”  He looked at her pleadingly.  “Angie, please go.  You don’t have to stay here.  You can be safe.  If you were hurt, if I hurt you, I couldn’t live with it.  I just couldn’t.”  He choked on the tears that were welling up inside him and turned away from her.

Angie slipped her hand in his.  “Rollie, we’re going to get through this together, just like everything else we’ve faced.  If I left and something happened to you, I couldn’t live with it either.”  Her own voice started shaking with pent up emotions, moisture gathering in her eyes.  “You mean so much to me.  You are the most important person in my life.  Please don’t make me leave now, not when you need me the most.”

Rollie lifted his head and gazed at Angie.  He felt so vulnerable.  He felt like he was no longer in control of himself or his life.  Yet, looking in Angie’s eyes, he saw how much she cared for him.  He saw her strength and courage, and it gave him the faith to believe that they would get through this.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Angie.  I don’t think I could make it if you weren’t with me,” he said, his voice ragged.

“You’ll never have to find out, Rollie, because I will always be here for you,” Angie told him, giving him a tender smile.

Rollie continued to gaze at Angie as the undeniable urge to kiss her abruptly swelled inside him.  Instead of tamping it down as he always had in the past, he let it grow.  Everything else seemed to fade away.  For the first time since the moment he realized that he'd fallen in love with Angie, the fear of what might happen if he told her was gone.  And with the end of that fear came an incredible feeling of freedom and joy.  He didn't have to hide anymore.

With that realization, Rollie let himself go.  A tiny sound escaping from deep in his throat, he reached out and cupped his hands around the back of Angie’s neck, pulling her to him.  His lips descended upon hers.  Their mouths opened to each other with a low moan, something like an electrical shock searing through them, inflaming their bodies with need.  Their senses went wild as they plundered each other’s mouths with a hunger that grew stronger by the second.  Rollie pressed Angie into his body, spreading his legs to pull her hips against his.  Angie groaned, tangling her hands in his hair, holding his mouth to hers as she drove her tongue into it as deeply as she could.  But it wasn’t enough.  She wanted more, had to have more.

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