Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Damn. I have a headache. I shouldn’t have drunk so much last night, damn River—I pause. Wait. What? No. This is not real.
“Luna!” A voice somewhere distant. I can’t move. “Luna, wake the fuck up!”
I shoot up from the floor in a rush, swaying on my feet. The veins in my head pulse to the same tune as the ache in my throat. Resting my hand against my forehead I hiss when something sharp stabs at my side.
The light is blinding, but I’m glad I can see something.
Everything clears around me, and one foot after the other, I stumble through the bedroom, catching on to one of the posts of the bed when it tilts.
The entry to the bathroom. My bathroom in Priest’s house.
Everything is the same as if frozen in time. The twirling beehive above the tub pulls me in, and I reach up to touch it.
Why have I never watched one of these? I was never interested.
I run my finger over the edging of each plastic-covered tape. There has to be thousands. I read over the numbers of the first one I see before noticing that as it twirls higher up to the ceiling, the older it gets. The lower ones must be new.
I round the tub. The marble floor sends a chill through the soles of my feet, and once I stop on the other side of the tub, my head tilts.
The birth of a Darling.
My legs turn weak, and the ground gets closer and closer. It’s not until I feel the smack against my forehead that I realize I am falling…and everything goes black.
I no longer ache when I wake, and when my body shifts to the side, nestled in the familiar darkness, not a single muscle complains. Is this a replay of torment? My mind’s way of reminding me that I should be grateful, and everything is still normal at least on the outside looking in.
“Sorry, Madness.”
I freeze when his voice trembles down the base of my spine. The deep ache inside of me a hole where he used to fit. Now I am tripping.
This is yet another dream. There’s no way he would be here right now, much less in this room.
“Is this where you’re hiding?” Pressure builds, squeezing air out of my lungs. I want him. All of him. I want this so much to be real, to have him fill the wound in my chest. Instead, the realization of knowing this is all but a dream fractures it further.
The splinters taste like bone.
His footsteps are careful.
I swallow, even though it hurts. The pain of being alone is almost as bad as knowing I can’t have him. Not ever. Because he belongs to her—I knew that—he knew that—everyone knew that. I was a game, a trick, a figment of her imagination. There is no such thing as me, because it was always her.
It was always supposed to be her. I was simply his Vermilion girl. The one who didn’t exist.
Which means he’s not real. He’s not standing in front of me, touching me, whispering to me. Because I’m not her.
The bed dips when he lowers himself down, the sharp lines of his jaw almost too unbearable to look at. But god he’s beautiful. It’s not fair that I’ll always want him, but he’ll never want me.
I am sick of denying myself the blatant truth because every time I close my eyes at night, it was him I saw. It was our time together I kept. It was his touch I felt, his kisses that burned, and the way his weight felt on top of mine when he rode my body over the edge was almost too unbearable to remember.
He keeps his eyes peeled out to the front of him. If I wasn’t being so greedy and delusional, I’d follow his sight to see what he is looking at, but I don’t want to miss a second. I don’t want to blink because I know that is all it takes for him to be gone again, as if he never existed.
And I’ll be left once more, in this shell of a room that feels like home, even though I know it isn’t.
He wasn’t mine to begin with, and he never will be.
My fingers itch to touch him, so I reach up to his cheek. Heat spreads through my palm at a speed that has my head spin.
But he isn’t real.
He turns toward me a little. “Do you trust me?” I’m too entranced by his mouth that I lose my train of thought.
“Yes.”
He smiles, but it’s not the usual one he gives me. There’s no underlying meaning. He twirls some of my hair around his finger. “You wouldn’t if you knew my secrets.”
“I already know your secrets, Priest.” The words come as quickly as they arrive in my head, but that’s how it’s always been, because with him, I’ve never had to think or second-guess what I say.