Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
She keeps going into the grassy field where empty boat trailers sit and then stops and starts twirling around with her arms raised to the sky.
“Isn’t this amazing?” she cries out.
I stare at her, trying to figure out what’s happening, how it’s happening, when I realize why Amani is spinning around and grinning like a fool.
White flakes are falling from the air.
It’s snowing.
It’s fucking snowing.
The cold hits me at once. My shins, my nose, my cheeks, the exposed section of my chest as flakes hit my skin and melt. I hold my robe closer, wishing I could make sense of this, wishing my brain could just keep up.
“They said it doesn’t snow here, not even in winter, and yet look at this!” she cries out, her breath freezing in the air. “This is a dream come true.”
I can only stand where I am and stare, blinking away the flakes that gather on my lashes. “You’re not real,” I whisper.
“Aren’t we lucky?” She continues to twirl, then points at me. “You’re so lucky that Everly didn’t care about your scholarship. Teacher’s pet that you are.”
I slowly walk toward her, terror starting to seep into my bones like the cold because Amani was sent home on the plane. Amani isn’t here. Someone else took her place.
But what if Amani didn’t go home at all?
“Amani. Are you okay?” I ask her, my voice shaking. “What happened to you? Where have you been staying? How do you know about Everly and my scholarship?”
“Sydney Denik, the golden child,” Amani says, laughing now. Round and round she goes. “Who would have thought? Well, that Professor Edwards dick will rue the day you become more successful than he is.”
I stop. No. None of this is right.
I look up at the sky. It’s still snowing, the flakes illuminated by the lights from the barn. It’s so quiet outside, so still, and the snow is getting thicker.
It’s getting colder.
This is real, I tell myself, feeling the flakes on my skin and in my hair, the biting ice. Snow in early June, strange but possible. But is she real?
Suddenly, she picks up a snowball and throws it at me.
It hits me right in the face, caking it.
I gasp, quickly brushing the snow out of my eyes, my nose and hair. When I look down at my hand, it’s smeared with red. Either the snow cut my face, or my nose is bleeding again.
I look up, blinking through frosted white. Amani is gone.
I spin around, looking for her.
“Amani!” I call out.
There are only the trees, their branches now layered with white, like icing sugar. They stand there, stoic observers, giving no insight.
She may have run to the logging road, to the barn, or to the woods, or just back to wherever she came from. But I don’t want to follow her anymore.
I don’t trust her.
I don’t trust my mind.
I don’t trust this place.
CHAPTER 16
I hurry down the path through the rain, the ferns reaching out and brushing against my jeans, my jacket held above my head in lieu of an umbrella. I’m early for Kincaid’s session, but I didn’t want to waste any time in talking to him, and I’m eager to get out of the rain.
I first took a quick detour to the maintenance yard. After the snow last night, I had to go and check to see if there was any left on the ground. Of course, with the rain, there’s no trace of it.
I’m running across the gravel path when I hear rustling behind me.
I stop, thinking perhaps I’ll see Amani again.
But there’s no one there. Rain drips from the cedars, splashing on the leaves. And yet, I have that uneasy twinge in the base of my skull, the feeling of being watched.
It’s not the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve felt eyes on me, eyes that seem to only be found in the trees.
I start hurrying along again, hating that prickle at the back of my neck, and reach the north dorm. Once under the shelter of the overhang, I shake the water off my jacket, then open the door and step inside, still dripping all over the floor.
Wincing at the puddle I’m leaving, I walk slowly down the hall, careful not to slip, when I notice Kincaid’s door is open a crack.
I’m about to knock when I hear Everly from inside.
“She’s different,” Everly says with a heavy sigh.
I gulp, hoping they’re not talking about me.
I lean in closer to the door, trying to hear.
“She’s better now,” Kincaid says.
“You would say that” is Everly’s snippy remark.
“She’s better,” Kincaid repeats, his voice hard. “Her appetite has returned.”
Fuck. They are talking about me.
“I bet it has,” she comments.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re very obvious about your obsession with her.”
Obsession with me?
Hell no, he hasn’t been obvious.