Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 79599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Chances were that the thing didn’t even work.
“I’m not talking my way out of it, Mom,” I said, as I could finally draw in a breath. Slowly, I crab-walked on my hands and feet, sideways toward the house.
Toward the only shot I had of surviving.
“I just thought that maybe we could do it together, you know, go at the same time,” I said, mirroring her cheery voice as best I could.
“Oh, Cindy that’s a lovely idea. You were always my sweet one, you know. Headstrong. And a holy terror at times, but you could also be very sweet. I loved the way you used to play with my necklaces and earrings when you were a baby.” Mom set the gun against her chest and sighed.
“Can you do me a favor though, Mom? Can you use Dad’s old rifle? That way I have something to talk to him about when we get there. And I can use the gun you sent him to Jesse with. It will be fun and you know it’s hard for me to find things to talk about with Dad.”
“You know,” she said, picking up the rifle off the house. I climbed to my feet and wavered, holding onto the chipped siding so I wouldn’t fall. “I wish your father would have thought of something nice like this. It would have been so much easier. You should have heard him screaming and yelling.” She let out a quick burst of laughter. “Begging.” She inspected the gun to make sure it was loaded then tossed it to me. I caught it and made sure it was loaded just as she had. “Can you believe it? Your father…begging. It was quite ridiculous.”
Under the moonlight my mother’s ivory skin glowed. I’d always envied her long dark curls and naturally pink lips. To me she’d always looked like Snow White. I used to watch her pick oranges in the grove for her famous orange marmalade and wonder why I got stuck with pinkish hair, green eyes, and freckles, instead of her good looks.
Snow White stood tall in her satin blood splattered nightgown and aimed the rifle at me. With my heart hammering in my chest I raised the pistol at her. “I love you baby, see you on the other side,” she said. Tears welled in my eyes. I would only have a split second. Even if the gun jammed like it often did on the first pull of the trigger, it wouldn’t on the second.
My mother smiled manically at me with wide eyes.
Then Snow White pulled the trigger.
I held my breath, but nothing happened. She tapped on the side of the gun as she’d seen my father do a million times before and just before she was able to get her finger around the trigger again, I fired.
Blood splattered against the siding, turning peeling white paint to shiny red.
Mom had been right about one thing.
It was quick.
I dropped to my knees and clutched my chest. My mind blanked. I couldn’t form a coherent thought. Both my parents were dead and I didn’t know what I should do. Who I should call.
Both my parents were dead.
You killed your mother.
I wailed into the night; lost, afraid, and utterly alone.
I reached under my shirt and sought comfort the way I often did when my parents had been fighting, by clutching the ring I wore on a chain beneath my shirt.
I rubbed the cool metal between my fingers. A bolt of lightning hit the water tower and it was at that moment when the answer came to me. I knew where I had to go.
Who I had to go to.
CHAPTER THREE
Thia
It was raining.
It was summer in Florida.
It was always raining.
Somewhere during the forty minute bike ride from the farmhouse in Jessep to Logan’s Beach I’d lost all feeling in my feet as I pedaled wildly against the force of the sideways rain.
I’d tried to take my dad’s old Ford. The key rack by the front door was empty, which left only one other place they could’ve been. I willed my legs forward and back into the room that held my father’s lifeless body. Seeing him earlier didn’t lessen the impact of walking around the bed and finding my father splayed out at an awkward angle against the wall, his hair still wet with his blood.
“Daddy,” I cried, stepping over the red river that started as a pool behind his head and grew thinner and thinner until it left the room my parents shared and seeped into the space between the wall and floor, spreading both left and right, lining the white baseboards in fresh red.
My entire family was dead, but I didn’t have time to think about it and I was grateful because the weight of what happened was threatening to crush me where I stood.
Something inside me, a final ray of hope, told me that if I could just get to Bear, then it would be okay. He couldn’t make all this go away.
But he could make it okay.
He made you a promise. He will help you. He can do the thinking for you. You just have to get there.
I couldn’t bring myself to look in my dad’s pockets. Touching him would just make it more real.
Without another option, I picked my bike out of the dirt and headed out.
Each rotation of my legs made the muscles in my thighs feel heavier and heavier. The only thing propelling me forward was the salvation I’d hoped to find when I reached the Beach Bastard’s clubhouse.
When I reached Bear.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thia
The rain hadn’t let up by the time I got to the gate. A skinny kid stood guard outside on a stool. Through his clear plastic poncho I could see the patch on his cut that read PROSPECT. He watched me as I laid down my bike and limped over to him, the muscles in my legs hadn’t yet gotten the message that I was done pedaling. “I need to see Bear,” I said. “Please. Can you tell him that Thia is here to see him? Thia from the gas station. I need to talk to him. It’s very important.”