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)
“I do,” he insists anyway.
She turns back to him.
And again, Kaleb feels happy—her gaze, a precious gift.
“You may start to think … that Ashara has given you this as a reward for your loyalty,” she says carefully, quietly, her eyes locked on his. “This room, your clothes, the food you’ll enjoy. But in truth, it’s a contract. And at any time you fail to meet Ashara’s needs, that contract breaks … and you will fall … and with it, every drop of blood in your fragile-as-bowstring veins.” She glances down at his chest. “I’m sorry. I scared you just now. I heard your heart … lurch. But I think you should know the danger you’re in, what you face. It’s important that I’m honest with you, that you know there is one person you can trust, if anyone at all. Humans, they’re like secrets here in the House of Vegasyn … They live short lives.”
Kaleb takes her hand suddenly. It’s an act that surprises the both of them. As their eyes meet, despite his slamming heart, despite the prickles of fear on his neck, he says, “I trust you.”
Raya’s eyes are alight. She doesn’t blink. The certainty in Kaleb’s words seem to ground her at once.
“I … almost believe you,” she whispers, amazed.
11.
Countless Other Nights to Play.
—∙—
Kyle sucks his tongue as he wipes down the counter. The bar is quiet, only three at a table in the back, no one at the front counter, a morose tune lazily playing from the jukebox.
It’s only been two days since Lazarus paid them a visit, yet it feels like it was weeks ago. Like the events at the House of Vegasyn, everything is pushed away from Kyle’s mind, pushed far away, as if to deny any of these things actually happening, as if Lazarus poses no further threat, as if Jessica was just a dream, as if Tristan is still dead and gone.
How much longer can he keep pretending he’s okay?
“Nah, I’m fine, Leland’s got me,” says the café owner from down the street, who is usually here drinking away his marital woes, but instead seems focused on the TV and whatever game is rerunning at this hour. “Nah, really, no refill, said I’m fine.”
His eyes shift, barely looking at Kyle, his fingers drumming anxiously along the rim of his glass. His heart rate is increased. Perspiration on his palms. Kyle senses these things, too.
“Alright,” says Kyle, then moves away.
And his eyes catch two others in the back, the curly-haired sisters who run the bakery. They look up, spot him, then look away and resume whispering to each other.
Kyle washes a glass, tries not to sense their fear as well.
The glass snaps in his hands. Shards dropping into the sink.
When he looks up, everyone else is looking at him, silent, wide-eyed—even a man in the corner booth Kyle had assumed was asleep. Is this something Kyle has been ignoring? That maybe the lovely citizens of Nowhere aren’t quite as comfortable with him as previously thought? That maybe after the night just a week ago when he confessed his secret to everyone here in town, people have gotten to talking and spreading rumors?
“No, Kyle, you’re overthinking,” says Cade over the top of her laptop. “If there were rumors bouncing around, I’d be the first to hear. Everyone loves you. Well, except for maybe the chief,” she quickly adds, “but he doesn’t love anyone except his Jer Bear. Oh, while I’ve got you …” She spins her laptop around, lifts it up, puts the screen next to her face. “Do we look alike? This woman and I? Even a tiny itty-bitty bit? She shares my gran’s maiden name.”
No matter what Cade says, Kyle can’t shake the feeling. He sits in the park long after the bar closes, on a bench that faces a sad patch of land that now and then tries to grow grass, but is mostly just dirt and dust, which the playful night wind picks up every few minutes in a swirl before his face. There were a handful of kids here just the other evening throwing around a football. It landed at Kyle’s feet. He picked it up and threw it back, and one of the kids shouted, “You got a great throw, sir!” It made Kyle think about his life in Texas, his teammates, his childhood with Brock, and everything else that seemed bent on crushing his heart. Then one of their parents came rushing over to usher her kid away, glancing back warily at Kyle.
It isn’t just paranoia. Kyle can literally feel everyone’s fear. It seems recent, as if the love he felt in this town just last week has been poisoned. Something has changed. Or perhaps it was just inevitable. Something in his eyes that people feared.
This late at night, the park looks dark and threatening. It seems like everything looks dark and threatening lately. Kyle can’t even trust that a simple shadow isn’t another monster. He isn’t sitting here in this park to relax. Or to think about football or the good days. He’s watchdogging. Convinced Wendy and Tristan and all the evils of the Vegasyn domain don’t give a shit about Nowhere or its people. Probably would be in Vegasyn’s best interest for the humans of Nowhere to be picked off one by one by the likes of Lazarus and whoever else desires a taste. Lord Markadian is likely laughing at the news, delighting in Kyle’s slow demise. Maybe next time, it’ll be a pack of coyotes possessed by Satan that come by. Or an evil leprechaun, if they’re really lucky.