Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Kyle takes the bottle. “I’ll … be sure to thank her for the, uh, suggestion.”
“I wouldn’t try it,” whispers Leland with a shake of his head, “too risky.” Then he slides next to Becks and starts snacking on the nachos, too.
For some reason, it only now occurs to Kyle that his phone is still stuffed away in a drawer in his kitchen. It probably has a thousand missed calls and messages by now.
Likely zero from the one person he wants to hear from.
Elias.
“Does the name Elias Asad Trujillo ring a bell with either of you?” Kyle blurts out suddenly.
Becks and Leland look up. “Trujillo?” asks Becks. “Not to me,” says Leland, blinking. “Why? Who’s that?”
Kyle sighs. “No one.”
It’s then that Brock lifts his head straight off the counter like a zombie come to life. “Asad Trujillo? Fuckin’ Trujillos in Vegas are a—a fuckin’ pain in my dad’s ass. Hear ‘bout ‘em all the—” He rips out a belch, his eyes go crossed. “—the time. I played their casino once, stayed in a suite, room service sucked, it wasn’t all that.” His head drops back to the counter. “Had better luck at the, the, fuckin’, what’s the name … the …” His eyes shut, air blows out his lips, and he’s asleep again.
Kyle stares down at him, stunned by the sudden bomb drop of information. “Brock?” He nudges his shoulder. “Hey, Brock, wake up. What was all that? A casino in Vegas …? Brock!”
He’s completely out. Kyle frowns, frustrated. Even several nudges more, the guy still doesn’t stir, snoring away.
The sound of his snores revives a half-faded memory. Kyle sees Brock’s head on Tristan’s lap. He might seem like a terrible person, but really, he’s got a soft heart, this one, Tristan had said, gently petting Brock’s hair.
Kyle reaches out and strokes Brock’s hair, curious.
It’s still as soft as it used to be.
“My sister runs AA meetings the next town over,” murmurs Becks with a sympathetic frown, munching loudly on nachos. “I can hook your friend up.”
Something tickles the back of Kyle’s neck.
Hairs standing up.
Without prompt, Kyle looks up at the front windows of the bar, as if he was just directed to do so.
Standing outside is a dark figure, obscured somehow, as if repelling all trace of light, like a silhouette, pure black, a void.
It’s the figure from the alley.
The figure he saw. The motionless, soundless figure.
The next instant, it’s gone.
Kyle abandons Brock at once and races to the front door of the bar, nearly steamrolling over the sad-eyed café owner who was on his way in. “Sorry,” he barely mutters as he pushes out of the bar and onto the street, eyes opened wide. He looks one way, then the other.
There’s no sign of the figure anymore.
He goes around the building, determination pounding in his heart, and stares down the alley.
No one, nothing.
“Who are you?” Kyle calls out. His voice echoes down the alley, echoes back at him. “Why do you keep hiding? Come on, let’s stop playing with each other. I have had a long day.” Kyle strolls fearlessly down the dark alley, takes a peek behind the dumpster, even lifts the lid of a trash bin, nothing. “If you’re so curious about me, why don’t we have a chat? Face to face? I’m told I’ve got a handsome one, maybe a bit dead in the eyes, but we all can’t be perfect.”
He stops at the other end of the alley next to the back door of the bar. With no visual sign of the figure, Kyle decides to try something new. He closes his eyes, focuses, and reaches out in an alternative way—with his gift.
Warmth.
Like a heated stone in a set of cold palms, comforting, nice.
Relief. Happy, pulsing, and lighthearted, nearly giddy.
Kyle opens his eyes.
At the end of the alley, back in the street, the figure again, completely obscured in shadow, a vacuum of sound and light.
That warmth is at once frozen over.
The heated stone turning instantly into a lump of solid ice, stinging the imaginary palms of Kyle’s gift with its frigid bite.
“H-Hey,” says Kyle, unblinking. “Please don’t go again. I won’t hurt you. Please just tell me who you are. What you are.”
The figure doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t breathe.
“You’ve been here before,” Kyle goes on, listening to his gift. The emotion is growing even colder still, impossibly cold. It’s nearly painful for Kyle to stay connected to, like gripping a steel bar in a freezer, stinging, pricking, biting, sharper, harder by the second. “Is there something you want to ask? Something you want to say? Are you …” Kyle swallows. He’s shivering. In this humid, hot alleyway in the middle of the desert, he shivers like it’s the dead of winter. “Are you … someone like me …?”
At once, the cold is too much to bear. It’s painful. Aching.