Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
I frown at her. Some people count down to eighteen as though the gates into adulthood have opened, but Winona is dreading it. At eighteen, the media can say whatever they want about us. We’re no longer minors, and press won’t care about crossing ethical lines. The boundaries will be erased.
“That’s the spirit,” Vada says, nudging her elbow to cheer her up. “We’re only sixteen.”
“Anyone who comments about your boobs online is a perv,” I say.
“Super pervy,” Vada agrees.
“Some days,” Nona says quietly, “I feel like I could just run into the forest and join the wild creatures and never come out.”
Audrey’s face breaks. “You’d leave us?”
Those words send a dagger to my heart. Another person gone. Another one leaving. I’m not sure I could take Winona, Vada, or Audrey vanishing from my life. It’s not survivable.
I think about my brothers and sister.
My heart heavies, and I try to focus on cutting—but a knot is in my throat.
Nona smiles softly at each of us. “Could I entice any of you to join me in the woods?” Her lips downturn seeing me. “Kin?”
Get it together. I lift my chin. “I’m out. I need shampoo and conditioner and deodorant."
“Life’s finest necessities,” Nona nods in agreement, her worry on me for another beat before she returns to the magazine. “I think I’d miss those too.” She still seems in the dumps, and I hate it. I hate those loser T-Bags that have officially crawled under her skin.
“I’m going to break his nose,” I declare. I don’t even have to say his name. We all know I’m talking about Tate.
“No,” Nona says.
“Why not?” I ask. “Just a little pop right on the bridge.”
“I support Kinney’s plan,” Vada nods.
“As do I,” Audrey says.
Nona gives me a hard look. “You’ve never even been in a fistfight with an actual person, let alone a boy.” She has, is what’s implied here.
“I’m proud this will be my first,” I say into a dry smile. “I’ve gone way too long without this experience.”
Audrey narrows her eyes at me. “I revoke my support. I shall not be party to Kinney’s villain era.”
I glare at her. “Am I not in that era yet?”
She tapes a picture of Uncle Ryke to her box. “Nay.”
“Let’s move away from Kinney’s hunger for violence,” Winona says, then frowns more at me. “You okay, babe?”
“You can’t leave,” I say strongly, from a place so deep within that my eyes burn and the room falls hushed. “Everyone leaves, and…and I think I’m destined to be a witness to death, someone I know is going to die again, I know it.” My voice cracks. Oh my, ugh. This was not supposed to happen!
Audrey wraps an arm around me. “Kinney.”
“I’m fine,” I say to the scissors in my hand, glaring. “It's just...all my siblings and mom have nearly died." Xander...Moffy in a car crash...Mom attacked...Luna kidnapped..."And I’m cursed to stand by while it happens. That’s all.”
“You aren’t cursed,” Nona says sympathetically.
“She could’ve pissed off a spirit,” Vada teases.
Audrey considers this, “She has touched the Ouija board more than all of us combined.”
Nona tosses a tape-ball at me.
But I flick it off my lap. “I’m fine. Jeez.” I blush and pick up another magazine. When I look up, Nona is taping her eyelids to her forehead. She is such a goof. I shake my head, and when she starts chirping like an ant, I break into a laugh with my friends.
“We should play music,” Audrey proclaims and puts on a holiday shuffle. Mostly the true classics. It’s Christmas Eve, after all.
Winona never said she wouldn’t leave. Did she?
I look up at her.
But she’s busy cutting and asks, “What’d we think of the holiday task list?”
The holiday task list. It was created and distributed by Jane for our arrival to the lake house. Most items were decorating tasks. I try not to look at Audrey. Don’t be suspicious.
We were paired up, and our task…did not go as planned. (To put it mildly.) But we both agreed that no one needs to know what happened—other than my sister who was snooping and saw—but besides Luna, we’ll be taking our secret to the grave. I will die with this. My corpse will be covered in cobwebs, and my ethereal ghostly form will still never spill.
Winona and Vada don’t know what happened. They were paired and tasked with hanging garland and wreaths, so they missed it.
It’d hurt more leaving Winona and Vada out if they didn’t keep their own secrets from Audrey and me too.
“If no one’s going to say it, I will,” Audrey says.
I frown. Is she going to tell them? No. We pricked our fingers. It was a blood oath!
“Jane only tasked Thatcher with chopping wood so she could watch him do manual labor, and I think it’s positively brilliant.”
“Farrow was with him,” Vada reminds her. “I doubt she wanted to see Moffy’s husband slinging an axe too.”