Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“Shock.”
“Yes, you’re in shock. That’s what this is. And I know what you need.” Jessica takes his hands. Her skin is blazing hot. “Let us pray, Brock. Let us ask the Lord for guidance.”
When Jessica closes her eyes and begins to recite her words of prayer, Brock watches, awestruck by the peaceful, soft expression on her face. Her cheeks, flushed and supple. Her lips, like candy. Brock imagines nipping them, how they would feel so pliable.
As pliable as soft flesh peeling apart like a pastry. The squishy red jam that spills out from the bread, thick, gummy, oozing out.
“Amen,” says Jessica, opening her eyes—and seems startled by Brock’s odd expression. “How do you feel now?” she decides to ask, her words slow, uncertain. “Brock? Did you pray?”
He slowly nods.
“Good.” Jessica lays his hands back into his lap, pats them. “We’ll get through this. We get through everything together. We’ve been through harder times, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” he recites, though nothing comes to mind.
He barely notices when she’s no longer sitting next to him, no longer touching his hands. Belatedly, he peers up to find his son at the bedroom door, Jessica there, asking him if he’s okay, if he’s hungry, that maybe what they all need is a decent meal in their bellies. Then she peers over her shoulder, notices Brock, says, “Let’s all go downstairs for some lunch.” Her arm wraps around the back of Asher, consoling him. He still seems stiff. “Then we can head back to Phoenix and put this all behind us.”
Asher stares at his father from across the room, staring at him like he’s an alien.
Brock smiles back.
Next thing, the three of them are seated at a table in the middle of a loud restaurant. It’s somewhere on the first floor of the Scarlet Sands. Their table is next to a long window, through which there lies the infamous swimming pool with the dark red water, which looks strangely more sinister during the daylight hours than it does at night.
Brock stares at that pool, eyes lost in its red waters.
“You haven’t touched your food,” complains Jessica. Brock missed the first few things she said. “Yes, we’ll just take that to go,” she says to the server, likely more irritably than intended. Asher’s face remains buried in his phone, tapping away on some game, earbuds crammed in, not paying attention.
Brock is almost surprised when he blinks and realizes they are walking through the lobby of the Scarlet Sands toward the doors. “Mr. Hastings,” says a young lady at the front counter in her tight leather uniform with fake fang bites on her neck. She offers no warmth in her face or expression. “I hope you enjoyed your stay. We look forward to your return.”
“We’re never returning,” says Jessica on his behalf. “Bless you, and I will pray for your soul tonight, all your souls, so help you, this is Satan’s house and no one else’s.”
The young lady only watches them leave, saying nothing more. Brock stares back at her over his shoulder, finding her to be vaguely familiar. Brock and Kyle, standing at that front desk, Brock laughing, Kyle smirking as he studied the side of his face, the two of them about to have the best night of their lives.
The last night of Brock’s life.
“I died,” mumbles Brock to himself as they depart the loud, echoing foyer of the Scarlet Sands, barely any air in his words, “Came back. Like a dream. Forget it happened. All okay now.”
He died. He came back. It was like a dream.
“Should I drive?” asks Jessica as they stand by the vehicle. She has the patience to wait exactly four seconds. “I’ll drive,” she says.
The three of them zigzag through the streets of Las Vegas, through the exciting Strip, and en route to the highway. Jessica drives with more force than Brock remembers, his body pressed to the passenger seat window with each hard left turn. He notes the tightness in her jaw as she drives and how it accentuates the veins in her neck. The tightness of her knuckles on the wheel.
The way her lips pucker unnaturally.
Like she’s sucking intently on a sour candy.
“I already made the calls,” says Jessica, “so you don’t have to give it a thought. The authorities. Police departments. Our pastor back home. Your father,” she then adds with a change of tone, interrupts herself with a sigh, then says, “and my own. I’d be surprised if half the state of Arizona wasn’t looking for you.”
Brock peers over his shoulder at his son in the backseat, still playing on his phone, earbuds popping out of his ears like two white antennas. He smiles as he watches his son play his game. It fills his heart with joy to watch him. Makes him think of himself at seventeen. Of his best buddy Kyle. This one time they were in the back seat together, laughing at something dumb, parents driving.