Total pages in book: 9
Estimated words: 7742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 39(@200wpm)___ 31(@250wpm)___ 26(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 7742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 39(@200wpm)___ 31(@250wpm)___ 26(@300wpm)
Chapter Two
PANIC LAWRENCE DONOVAN
A man who’s NOT going to kiss the girl,
no matter how much he wants to…
Sometimes I think my parents named me Panic as a joke.
That they looked down at my baby face in the bassinet at the hospital and thought—“We’re taking this kid home to live in a creepy Victorian cottage filled with disturbing memorabilia from his mom’s horror-writing career and plan to leave him alone in his playroom with the ghost parrot that haunts the third floor for hours while we’re busy with work. Wouldn’t it be fun to name him Panic, so every time he runs screaming into our offices, complaining about his latest supernatural encounter, we can tell him not to panic, Panic? Doesn’t that sound like a good time?”
If that was their plan, however, it backfired.
I came into the world cool, calm, and collected and have worked hard to make sure nothing shakes me. Or that I don’t let it show if it does. I pride myself on my level head in a crisis and my firm control of my emotions.
But as I burst through the front door, expecting to find some homeless kid racing out the back only to see Genevieve curled into a ball on the floor while Mom’s latest batch of semi-feral, completely insane, rescue cats swarm her like a sardine tossed into their treat bowl, I lose it. Every last bit of my infamous chill flies out the window as I rush at them, shouting, “Get off of her! Stop it! Beastly, Skullduggery, Insane Clown Posse, get! Shoo, you little monsters.”
The cats all scuttle away, hissing and growling their complaints, except for Floof Loaf, who remains crouched by Genevieve’s head, glaring at me with his one good eye.
I reach to pull her to her feet and Floof takes a swipe at me with his fat paw. I dodge his claws and assure him, “I’m not going to hurt her, psycho. I’m just going to help her up.”
“No, don’t. Don’t help me,” Genevieve moans from behind the arms shielding her face from the cat attack. “Leave me here. Let them pick my bones clean. Just…tell my parents I love them and that I’m sorry for being a huge disappointment who died by rescue cats.”
A smile curving my lips, I crouch down beside her. “You might be being a hair dramatic, Frances. Don’t you think?”
“No,” she moans, still hidden behind her hands. “Everything is bad.”
“I’m assuming that’s why you broke into my parents’ house? You could have just let yourself in, you know. The key’s still in the flowerpot out back.”
“I couldn’t find it,” she says with a sniff. “And how did you know I broke in? I punched in the code for the alarm.”
“Yeah, but the system alerts Mom via text message every time a door or window opens. Beastly sneaks out through the kitchen window sometimes. That’s what she thought happened tonight, so she texted me to come check and make sure he didn’t get locked out in the snow.”
Genevieve peeks over the tops of her hands, her green eyes bright with unshed tears that make my heart twist. “So, the police aren’t coming?”
“No, they aren’t,” I say gently, reaching out to scratch Floof Loaf between the ears, even though I’d much rather cup Genevieve’s sad face in my hands and promise her everything is going to be all right.
But I can’t touch her. I can barely look at her. I haven’t exchanged so much as five sentences with my surrogate little cousin since it happened. I haven’t dared. She’s made it clear that she hates me with all the considerable fire in her poet’s soul.
Genevieve is my opposite in just about every way—passionate and intense to my calculated reserve, shamelessly ambitious while I ‘play it cool,’ and capable of holding a grudge for years while I’ve already forgotten why she looks at me with a death glare Beastly, the shredder of all skin that is not my mother’s skin, would envy every time we run into each other at a family event.
Fine…that isn’t true.
I remember every second of that kiss and how fucking hard it was to pull away from her. I remember the way her cheeks flushed fuchsia when I told her she could never do that again and her mortified expression when she realized the other guys in the band had seen her drunken lean into my lips.
But I had no other choice.
We aren’t related by blood, but we might as well be. Our parents are all best friends, and we grew up together. She’s like my cousin, a girl I want to protect from the dangerous things in the world, not one of the groupies that gather outside the stage door who are fine with a few drinks and a one-night stand to tell their friends about later.