She left Ash behind.

One

Now

Kincaid Breslin was the girl who was supposed to die first in the horror movie. In high school, it had been a running joke among her friends during their annual Halloween marathon of scary movies that she’d be the first character topless, screaming, and running for her life.

She was the dance team captain. The girl with the superstar boyfriend. The nonvirgin. All those things spelled dead in those classic eighties horror movies. Her character probably wouldn’t have been on-screen long enough to even get a name. In the credits, she’d be listed as Blond Cheerleader #1 or Hysterical Girl #2. But her friends had been wrong. When Kincaid’s life had turned into an actual horror movie, she’d somehow managed to get out alive. Most of those friends hadn’t. Real life didn’t follow movie rules.

So you would think after actually surviving what she had, she’d be extra-vigilant about putting herself in any situation that resembled a scary movie ever again. But as she stared up at the rambling farmhouse that could star in the next teen slasher film, she fell head over heels in love.

“Holy shit,” her friend Liv said from next to her, camera clutched in her hands. “Are we supposed to go inside that thing?”

Kincaid frowned. “Well, yeah. I need photos of the interior. There are none online yet, and Bethany wanted pictures ASAP. And what Bethany wants, she gets. I need this sale.” Kincaid sent Liv a beseeching look. “Please make this place look gorgeous.”

Liv’s expression turned wary, as if she were already regretting offering her photography skills for Kincaid’s demanding real-estate client. “Has it been opened and aired out recently? Maybe had some sage burned and a spirit guide cleanse the thing?”

Kincaid snorted, surprised at her normally unflappable friend’s reaction. “Honey, I didn’t take you for the superstitious sort. That’s usually my job. It’s just an old farmhouse.”

Liv gave her a pointed look, dark eyes holding her gaze as she very deliberately made the sign of the cross and recited something in Spanish. “Chica, that thing for sure houses the angry spirits of serial killers or maybe vampires. I bet there are bones in the attic. Or portals to hell in the basement. I am not playing Willow to your Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Kincaid laughed. “Vampire slaying would be awesome, but there are no basements here.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at the house again. “I think it’s…quaint.”

Liv gave her a girl, please look. “Quaint? You’re using your real-estate-agent words. ‘Cozy’ means small. ‘Fixer-upper’ means money pit. ‘Quaint’ means…portals-of-hell demons ready to eat your soul for the mere price of… What’s this thing cost anyway?”

Kincaid checked her notes from her earlier chat with her fellow agent, Ferris. “Owner’s asking five hundred.”

“Wow,” Liv said, lifting her camera and taking a shot of the wide, sagging porch. “Someone’s proud of their creepy-ass haunted house.”

“That price includes a decent chunk of land. Plus, the home was owned by one of the original families of Long Acre. It’s historic,” Kincaid countered, not sure why she was trying to defend the house. Maybe because if she didn’t make a big sale soon, the agency was going to start questioning whether they needed four full-time agents.