Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
I lift a single brow in challenge, glaring through the lens as if it wore the skin of evil himself.
Billy moves the mask enough to do what he needs without exposing his entire face, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t need him long enough.
One lick.
Two.
“Okay, get off.” The heel of my foot lands on his shoulder and he stumbles back.
I reach for my phone with a smile, harnessing my inner Evie. Evie’s lack of appearance to these things is always obvious, but she’s never far. “Thanks.”
The girl shuffles nervously. “Aren’t you worried I’m going to tell everyone, or that people around us saw?”
I cut the video slightly so that it doesn’t show me kicking him off, before hitting post. “Nope. I’m counting on it.”
After covering myself for the last time tonight, I pause on the rubble of man on the floor. “Bas. I’d be careful where you step going forward.”
With one knee drawing up to his chest, he rests an arm over the top.
I draw home the seriousness of my words by pinning him with a pointed glare. “Not even my grandfather would be able to save you if they found out it was you.”
Tonight can go fuck itself. All I want is my best friend, my bed, and food.
With a pounding head of dread and a crippling weight of fatigue, I drag myself back through the party with the direction of my bedroom in mind.
My feet hit the main foyer and I find myself fixed on the family photos and portraits that scatter the walls leading up the staircase.
My blood turns cold when I land on one of Tillie, Nate, War, and River.
I rest against the rail, kicking off my shoes while lifting the bottle to my lips. If I’m going to bed, I’ll go shit-faced. Before I can stop myself, my finger traces the glass. I remember this trip like it was yesterday. I would have been nine or ten. It was around the time I thought I had a simple crush on my brother’s best friend. Turns out it wasn’t a crush. It was a fucking stampede of bad choices, and there was no stopping it once it started.
“Amica, go to bed.” Dad’s voice travels down from the top of the stairs.
I point to him with the hand holding the bottle. “He’s worse than Uncle Nate, isn’t he?”
His palm rests over his abs as his eyes shift to the photo. “He’s who he is, Amica. You can accept it or leave it. Come on.”
I stagger my way up the steps. Leave it. The lie hovers in my head for a nanosecond.
Dad catches my body when I skip a step, a gentle growl vibrating off him. “Baby girl. Bed.”
I pat him gently over the tattoo on his chest in passing. “I don’t think I can.”
As soon as my bedroom door swings open, my muscles ease. She’s here. Of course she is.
“Girl…” Evie’s working moisturizer over her face, already buttoned up in satin pajamas with two burgers in the space that separates us. I don’t have to look at my bedside table to know that she would have already put Advil and water there. “Your drunk posting tonight may just go down in history.”
“It was to my close friends list.” I roll my eyes, pulling back the fluffy cotton sheets.
Evie glares at me, pausing her skincare. She’s left her hair out in soft waves that flow down the curve of her back. “You are not getting into bed without washing away your sins.” She lifts a single curved brow. “Shower. Now. And no, I’m not helping you.”
The bottle slips from my fingers when I belly flop onto the mattress. “I hate him.”
“Yeah, well, maybe give your vagina the memo because it seemed to miss it.”
I push to roll onto my back, but the room spins around me. “Turn off the lights.”
“Go to sleep.”
“It hurts…”
War
The door to the Rolls Royce slamming closed echoes through the eerily silent street. Perdita isn’t exactly bright lights and laughter, but it’s never like this. The destruction of whatever has happened tonight is visible in the details.
Katsia’s door closes on the other side of the car as I trace the road of Main Street. “What the fuck is going on?” Splintered shop glass windows, nests of fires, and the outline of half a dozen bodies scattered around the town, facedown in their own blood.
“They came in quick.” She turns her whole body to me. “But you know us. We’re quicker.”
“The bodies?” Perdita was supposed to be a safe place for our people. If they’re here, they were and always have been under our protection. The fact that someone has fucked with that is big. If we lose people here, it makes us look weak. They’ll want retribution. I’ll make sure they get it.
“Not ours. We lost a couple, but the Lost Boys fought them off and killed many.” She gestures out to the road. “Clearly. Sorry about dragging you here. I didn’t mean to… interrupt whatever was happening.”