Chapter 2

Elowen's POV

"Wipe that feral, dog-eat-dog greed off your face."

Grandma didn't even open her eyes.

"I will take that pie recipe to my grave before I breathe a word of it to you. Your filthy hands don't deserve to touch my oven. Get out."

Delphine’s fake sorrow turned to stone. Her fingers, painted with blood-red polish, curtailed into tight fists.

"Rest well, Mom. I’ll visit another day."

She hissed the words through gritted teeth, spun on her heels, and slammed the door behind her.

I watched her go, my chest tight.

That night, the heat was suffocating.

I tossed and turned, haunted by the dead-water stare of my grandmother and the viper-like glare of my aunt.

The faint sound of a wooden floorboard snapping echoed through the dead-silent hallway.

My eyes shot open.

Holding my breath, I stared at the sliver of light under my door. A shadowy figure was gliding past.

I threw off my sweat-soaked sheets and crept barefoot to the door. The moment my hand grazed the knob, the door was violently shoved open from the outside!

Before I could scream, a face clad in a black mask lunged at me, a hand clamping hard over my mouth.

I thrashed wildly, bringing my knee up, but a harsh whisper cut me off.

"Elowen! It’s me!"

Delphine ripped her mask off. Her usually pristine face was grotesquely twisted, eyes gleaming with a manic obsession.

"Shut up, you useless brat," she hissed, wiping her hand on her dress in disgust before digging her manicured nails into my shoulders. "You’ve lived here all these years, and you never once thought to sneak a pie out to study it?"

I played the role of the terrified, cowardly niece perfectly. I went wide-eyed and shook my head furiously.

"It’s a cash cow!" she whispered, her voice trembling with deranged desperation. "That old bat has one foot in the grave. The second she croaks, the recipe dies with her. You wanna rot in poverty forever?"

How could I not be curious?

Grandma’s peach pie went for ten grand a pop. I had analyzed it a thousand times. The crust was rough, the filling dark and muddy. It looked exactly like a cheap five-dollar diner pie.

And yet, as her only granddaughter, I had never been allowed to taste even a crumb.

"Take me to the basement," Delphine demanded, breathing heavily. "The ingredients are down there. The secret is down there. Take me. Now."

"N-no... I can't!" I flinched, letting tears well up right on cue. "Grandma said I’m never allowed to pry... I’m scared!"

"Worthless trash! Just like your dead mother!"

She spat at me, shoved me hard to the floor, and melted back into the dark hallway.

I slumped on the ground, gasping, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Ten minutes passed in absolute silence.

But my gut twisted. Gritting my teeth, I picked myself up and hugged the wall, inching my way toward the basement.

The heavy iron door was left slightly ajar.

A smell crept out through the crack—damp earth mixed with an unsettling, sickly-sweet metallic scent.

My blood ran cold. Just as I leaned in to peek—

"Uh... ah... yes..."

A heavily suppressed, wet moan slithered into my ear like a cold, slimy tentacle.

I froze, the hair on my arms standing up.

That was... Delphine's voice.

"Right there... yes... deeper... god, that's amazing..."

Her voice was breathy and dripping with undisguised ecstasy. Paired with explicit, squelching sounds and the muffled thud of flesh slapping flesh, it echoed through the cavernous basement.

I clamped both hands over my mouth to stifle a gasp.

Wasn't she looking for the recipe?

Why was she hooking up with some guy in our creepy basement?

Biting my lip down to the iron taste of blood, I slowly backed away.

The next morning, I went to the alley to take out the trash, my brain still looping those bizarre, repulsive sounds from the night before.

As I turned the corner, a large, knuckle-heavy hand slammed down on the dumpster lid.

I snapped my head up and met a pair of bloodshot, hyper-manic eyes.

It was the journalist. Thaddeus Whitmore.

"Not so fast, sweetheart." He shoved a voice recorder in my face, his words firing off like a machine gun. "I interviewed three local women who had bought the pies. Take a wild guess how they described your grandmother’s baking?"

"The first woman said the pie tasted like the most intoxicating, overpowering male pheromones she'd ever encountered."

"The second one said swallowing a bite of that pie was like experiencing an hours-long, mind-bending climax that vibrated right to her marrow."

Thaddeus stared at me like a madman trying to dissect my soul, a deranged smirk forming on his lips as he dropped the ultimate bombshell.

"And the last one, a widow... she was practically drooling when she recalled how thick the pie was. Said it effortlessly filled every empty void inside her, sliding all the way to the deepest part..."