Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Cade took over the bar when her father became ill. No one would know she hated it at first, considering how pleasant and warm she usually is. The bar was a burden, and her hands were full with raising Layna. Now, she’s a woman with everything under control—except perhaps for the mess covering her desk at the moment. Clicking away on her laptop with one hand, she runs the other through her long tight braids, pulling them over a shoulder to reveal her snake tattoo winding up the right side of her neck, the ink striking and artful on her deep mahogany skin. Frustration creases her forehead as she squints wearily at the screen, scrolling through articles, looking for something.
Kyle takes a step back. “Doesn’t ring a bell, either of those names. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just came to say hi. I’ll go and relieve Becks now.”
“Hey, hey, not so fast.” She slaps shut her laptop and peers up. “Sorry. Did you say something when you first came in? Oh, the decorations! Yeah, it’s Jeremy’s birthday. You see him?”
Kyle smiles. “Sure did.”
“Good. Layna’s on her way. She’s fixing some cupcakes. I sure hope she doesn’t burn down the kitchen. I did leave her in a state of duress, and she would not take my help. She’s at that age, know what I mean? The ‘let me do it, Mom!’ age.” Cade lets out a sigh, shakes her head, then gives a swat at her books. “So that leaves me coming in early to sit here at a desk and pretend I’m a private eye who has any idea how to hunt down my own family history.”
Laughter and cheers are heard in the bar. Kyle glances out the door, taking note that Layna has arrived with said cupcakes, joining a number of others at one of the tables. Then he slowly eases the door closed and smiles at Cade. “Seems your daughter arrived safe and sound, baked goods included.”
“Do you think I’m being foolish here?”
Kyle lifts his eyebrows. “About what?”
“All of this?” She gestures at the catastrophe on her desk. “You know what I’m doing, right? You’re the only one I told.”
A rush of bubbling heat courses into Kyle like a fever. It’s Cade’s prickling doubt and desperate need for her suspicions to be validated. She has seen many peculiar marvels from her gran, and just before she died, she told Cade a secret, that she had a “gift”. Ever since, Cade has toiled with the possibility that the gift might have passed down to her or her daughter. Back and forth she’s gone, believing in it, then casting the notion away outright, thinking it ridiculous. Kyle senses all her worries.
And he suspects his own truth has now rekindled Cade’s.
After all, if something like Kyle can exist, why not women imbued with special powers?
“No,” Kyle finally answers. “I don’t think you’re foolish at all. Not one bit.”
Cade’s leg bounces in place below the desk as she gnaws on her lip, thinking. Then she leans forward. “Kyle, I swear to you, I’m not going crazy, but … I had a dream last night, and … and I think you were in it.”
“Really?”
“Come closer, sit down.”
He does, taking a seat in a folding chair by the desk.
She swallows, gathers her thoughts, appears to change her mind, then decides at once to go for it. “I dreamt of a burning house with a family inside.”
Kyle stares at her.
The air leaves the room.
As if an enormous living flame just took a great big breath to feed itself.
The sound of crackling wood and shattering glass.
“And in that house,” Cade continues, “I heard … I heard a shout. Like a boy’s shout. I felt like I was right in the middle of it, in the middle of that house. The boy cried out. He was on the floor, and … I saw him. He was …” Her face scrunches up in discomfort. “He was calling what sounded like your name.”
“My name?”
“Your real name. ‘Kyle … Kyle …’ That’s what he said. He had your eyes, too. I thought it was you at first … a teenage version of you, until I realized it was your name he was calling. Does that …” She winces. “Does that mean anything to you?”
It seems to be an everyday thing lately. Remembering that painful night when his second life had been thrust into motion. When Tristan took control of it all, took him away from his life and ran into the eternal night. What did Kyle’s last full sunrise look like that final evening he was human? Does he remember the color? Did he even bother to watch it? All of it fades away into that terrible night like a dream of his own. The only color that remains is the blood red that covered his kitchen.