Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I’m too tired to think about it further tonight, but not too tired that I can’t brush out the snarls in my hair. I kind of booby-trapped my suitcase so I could tell if anyone got into it while I was gone, and everything was fine. I reach in and dig around until I find my brush. I’m still squatting down in front of the suitcase, but I don’t need a mirror for a few quick swipes before I tumble into bed. Or rather lower myself gently onto the air mattress to keep it from flipping over or folding in the middle and consuming me like a giant blow-up monster.
As I slide the brush through my hair, I sigh at how good it feels despite the tug of knots. I clearly haven’t hit the big, eye-watering ones yet. I’m doing a second pass when something big and black and hairy drops down from the ceiling right in front of my face.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” The spider grins at me and blinks its six-hundred-and-eight arachnid eyes. Just kidding. I don’t stick around to count the eyes. I stumble back and land right on my ass while the intruder sways precariously above my head with my movement.
I know it’s more afraid of me than I am of it, but right now, it’s not acting so afraid. Nope. It’s freaking climbing its webby butt string, but when I say climbing, I mean letting itself down inch by frightening inch. I scoot back fast, crab-walking big time across the floor. There is no breeze in here, seeing as I closed the window flap, so it can’t blow its scary ass my way, but it does drop down and hit the floor running.
“Arghhhhhh!” I don’t mean to scream again. I shouldn’t scream. Someone is going to hear me and think something terrible is happening and call the cops or something. But I do scream.
I keep crab-walking fast as shit across the floor, and the spider keeps coming. He’s fast. Or she’s fast. It’s probably a she. I think female spiders are a bunch of boss bitches, and they’re usually the bigger ones. This spider? It’s huge, crazy fast, and really hairy. Yup, probably a female.
I’m nearly at the door, which is my only means of escape at this point, when it flies open, busting the tiny lock—so much for safety—and Orion is there looking like he’s going to fuck some shit up. He looks big and scary, his hair swirling around his face, a grim determination evident in the hard set of his jaw and flash of his gray eyes. He’s all, where’s the danger…I’ll take care of it, even though he says nothing because he’s too busy casing the place for potential axe-wielding murderers, and all I can do is point at the spider.
The spider is paused in her spider warpath, and she and Orion are locked in a staredown.
He moves first, and he moves fast. He ducks through the door and runs at it. She, on the other hand, holds her ground, and I’m not even kidding, waves her front two legs at him like she’s putting up her dukes and challenging him to a good old-fashioned brawl. He doesn’t give her a chance, nor does he offer to arm wrestle her to settle things that way. He just scoops her up in his hands. Yes. In. His. Hands.
When he turns, he’s already giggling. “It tickles,” he says with a laugh, and clearly, he’s talking about the wretched, hairy beast crawling all over his bare skin. He gently lets it out the door, turning his hand up and probably sticking it on a branch or the corner of the house before he ducks back in and closes the door.
“Shoot,” he says mildly, eyeing the broken lock on the door. “I guess I kind of wrecked that.”
“Um, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have screamed.”
He tilts his head half in agreement, but it’s the kind of tilt that says he understands why it was necessary. Spiders are not to be fucked with. This is California, and I don’t know anything about California spiders.
“It dropped out of nowhere. I was just brushing my hair, and I was so tired, getting ready to…uh…go to sleep, and it suddenly dropped down from the ceiling and started coming at me. It scared the poop out of me.”
The funny thing is, he looks around like that might have been a legit statement, which makes my cheeks go red-hot.
“Not safe,” he grunts at the door. “No lock. And everything’s probably closed for the night. You should sleep inside.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll just push my suitcase up against it. No one could get through that. Plus, it’s only one night.”
He doesn’t like it. He crosses his arms and says, “Granny won’t like that.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m right outside the house. You just proved how fast you can get here if something happened. Which it won’t.”