Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Your name is Kessler Lockwood.”
Kessler’s face stiffened as he tried to shake his head. For months, Ian wondered if it was real or just a game. It was a game, just not the one Ian could have ever imagined. But he should have known. There had to be a reason Kessler told everyone his name was Chris.
“N-no. You’re Kessler. I’m Chris. A-and I don’t remember my last name, but I remember Marley’s, and I remember boxing there.” He shook his head over and over. “I remember playing basketball with you, and I remember you bought me a really expensive pair of shoes because your family is rich. I had nothing, but you befriended me. You came home from college. You were high. You thought you hit an animal. If you just would have gone to the police, they would have understood. But you didn’t … because you were high.”
Ian didn’t want to believe it was real. Real didn’t get him a confession. Real didn’t convince Jersey. Real was pretty fucking complicated. But he had no choice. He believed the man before him had a brain injury that scrambled his thoughts, stealing some, replacing others. Ian believed Kessler was mentally messed up past the point of return.
“My name was Chris Faulkner.” Ian worked hard to control his level of rage, each word jagged, slow, and deliberate. “I grew up in foster care. My last home was with Charles and Dena Russell. I lived with them for two years. Charles encouraged me to play basketball. That’s where I made friends with you, Kessler Lockwood. You bought me an expensive pair of shoes because your family was rich.”
Kessler shook his head, pinching his eyes shut. “No. No!”
Ian bit his lips together, narrowing his eyes. “Your memory is pretty good; it’s just not of your life … it’s of my life. Some fucked-up part of your brain has remembered everything I told you about my life. You didn’t want to walk in my shoes then—hell, you didn’t want me walking in my own shoes because you were embarrassed of my low social status. That’s why you bought me shoes. I can’t let you walk in them now. You can’t have my shoes or my life. And you sure as hell can’t have Jersey.”
“No. No … no … no!” Kessler pressed his hands harder against his ears. “You’re lying to save yourself. She’s going to kill you. She won’t believe your lies. She loves me! She loves me! She loves—”
Ian slammed him against the wall. “Don’t think that I don’t know that you’re the one who tried to ruin me these past few weeks.” Ian punched him once. “The lip-syncing. Leaking everything about Jersey.” He punched him again, drawing blood.
Chris didn’t try to fight back; he just kept yelling. “No! No! No!”
“The fire … you started the fucking fire. How could you be so stupid?” Another punch. “That’s your specialty. But you don’t fucking remember, do you?” Ian didn’t stop.
Even when Kessler fell to the ground, Ian grabbed his shirt and punched him until he was unconscious, then he kicked him in the ribs.
Ian was a boxer.
Marley took him in, trained him to deal with his anger, and sent him on his way when Ian could no longer hear the demons of his past taunting him.
With burning, bloodied knuckles from beating Kessler’s face, Ian wiped his hands on his shirt. “Why didn’t you die?” Ian whispered to the lifeless body. He headed back to the other bedroom to unlock the door for Jersey, but she wasn’t there.
With the door still locked and the glass intact, it meant she climbed down to the ground or jumped.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jersey hobbled through the wreckage of Ian’s house, cringing at the pain in her ankle from the second floor drop off the balcony. She needed her knife. Ian’s master bedroom took the brunt of the damage, which was where she left her knives. Tossing aside pieces of wood and drywall from the collapsed ceiling, she trudged her way toward the closet.
Her foot kept landing on uneven surface, causing shooting pain in her ankle as she pitched things left and right, searching for the remains to the drawer that had her knives. So much stuff was new to her. She didn’t remember seeing plastic containers before the fire, but they were scattered everywhere as if they came from nowhere.
Jersey glanced up. Teetering between two rafters was another plastic storage container. Ian must have kept stuff in storage above his closet. After relentless searching, she found the drawer and her knives. She wiped her favorite one off with her shirt and slipped it in the back of her pants. Holding the other two knives in her hand, she turned back toward the bedroom door.
It was time to kill the rock star.
After one step, she paused next to a plastic container with half of its contents spilled onto the rubble.