Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
She was reading her way through Sense and Sensibility again for the first time in years, though a little voice in her head whispered that, given her current frame of mind, it probably wasn’t smart to read a book about people who wanted desperately to be together but were kept apart by circumstances beyond their control.
But reading gave Torri something to do to keep her mind off the horrible pain of loss. In a way, the emotional wound was deeper now than when Vic had been killed aboard the Fathership. Probably because she had believed there was no coming back from death, but these circumstances were different. This loss was deeper because he wasn’t dead this time—just frozen in stasis. And if only someone would unfreeze him, he could come to her. But it was never going to happen because the Kindred saw him as a valuable tool—not a person who had rights and feelings.
“Oh God, please,” Torri whispered, blinking back tears as she made her way through the meadow, up to the cottage. “Or Goddess—since that’s who Vic believed in,” she added, looking up at the deepening dusk and the way the shadows of the mountains were merging with the night sky. “Anyone who’s listening, I wish you would bring Vic back to me. I miss him so, so much. And I really feel like we were meant to be together, no matter what anyone says. Amen,” she ended rather lamely.
She didn’t even know what had possessed her to say a prayer—it was just that sometimes the loneliness and longing became too great to contain and it had to come out.
Sighing, she let herself into the cabin. She would take a hot shower to try and relax and then go to sleep in her old bed, which seemed so empty, since she could still remember Vic holding her in it. She wouldn’t have any night terrors…but then, she wouldn’t have any dreams where she sat and talked with Vic in the meadow in Spring, either.
My life is empty, Torri thought and shut the door, leaving the dead meadow behind her.
Fifty-Eight
She was woken in the middle of the night when someone shook her roughly by the shoulders and shouted,
“Wake up, you bitch!”
“What?” Torri’s eyes flew open and she looked up into a familiar face. “Chuck?” she asked, wondering if she was dreaming. “What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”
“He’s not here alone, you little skank!”
Another face loomed over her bed.
Amanda, Torri thought. The nasty expression on her face was instantly recognizable, even in the dimness of the bedroom. But what were her ex-husband and his mistress doing in her bedroom in the first place?
“What are the two of you doing here?” she asked, looking at them in confusion. She still wondered if she was dreaming—it was so surreal to be woken in the middle of the night by the two of them like this!
“I thought I’d find you up here,” Chuck snarled, glaring down at her. “You always did love this stupid cabin.”
“Because it was Nana’s. But what are you doing here?” Torri repeated, coming back to her original question.
“Getting what’s mine,” Chuck said, and dragged her out of bed and into the living room, which was much brighter than her dark bedroom.
Torri blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light. Amanda and Chuck were both wearing all-black clothes, as though they had dressed up to play burglar, but that wasn’t what caught her eye the most.
Amanda’s long blonde hair looked stiff and strange—different than it had the last time she’d seen the skinny secretary. As for her ex-husband, (as Torri now thought of him even though they had yet to divorce,) his light brown hair had been thinning for quite some time. But now it was unnaturally thick and dark—almost like a pelt on top of his head. What was going on with the two of them?
“What is wrong with you two? Leave me alone!” she exclaimed, struggling.
“Shut up and hold still!” Chuck gripped her firmly by the arms and yanked them behind her back.
“Hold her, Chuckie!” Amanda exclaimed and then something cold and metal was slipped around both of Torri’s wrists. She heard a click and realized, too late, that they had put a pair of handcuffs on her.
“What are you doing? What do you want?” she demanded, yanking uselessly on the cuffs that now bound her arms behind her back.
“I told you—I just want what’s mine.” Chuck marched her out of the living room, through the cabin, and shoved her into a seat at the dining room table. Spread out on the wooden tabletop were a lot of legal forms—some of them familiar.
“You could have just asked me for a divorce, you know,” Torri said, looking down at the papers in front of her. “I would have been happy to grant it.”