Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
It was only Sabra he kept locked under his roof. Controlled and never allowed to know anything else besides these walls. Never allowed to have any other friends besides me.
Sabra looks at Layden. “We’ll try again. Let me do some studying, but I think I might have an idea of what was off with my calculations. I need to look at some star charts and go back to Mom’s grimoires.”
It starts to rain, big fat drops washing away all the chalk-work Sabra did. I reach out and pull her into a hug. “We haven’t really talked since I got back. Maybe we can go out for coffee soon.”
She nods as she pulls away, some of the bounce coming back into her voice. “I’d like that.”
My tight chest loosens a little.
“Okay, I’m getting really hungry.” Sabra looks apologetically at Layden. He immediately backs away from her.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just time to call it for the day,” Sabra says. “I’ll call you soon when I know more.”
“Of course, whatever you need, please don’t make yourself uncomfortable on my account,” Layden backs away even further. “I appreciate you trying to help me. I can’t express how much. I didn’t know strangers could want to help one another until I met Phoenix.”
Sabra looks at him, then at me, then glances back and forth at us again. “Uh-huh,” is all she says, then smiles and turns away. “Bye,” she calls over her shoulder with a perky wave before bouncing away toward where she’s parked in the large garage in the left corner of the compound.
“I like her,” Layden says.
It’s stupid to feel jealous at his simple statement. But I can’t help feeling the sting of Sabra’s words, too. Is that what I’m doing? Keeping him here so I can fantasize about him and have him nearby because of how safe he makes me feel? Like I would a comforting blanket or a toy?
Are you going to be a selfish little girl?
I always have been, though, haven’t I? Freeing my parents from me was the one unselfish act of my life.
Layden might be so much older than me, but he’s brand new to this modern world. He seems not to know how drop-dead gorgeous he is. If he wasn’t literally a curse on any woman he spent more than an hour with, they’d all be drooling over him.
Of course he’d like someone sunshiny and bright like Sabra more than a gloomy person like me.
It only matters if she manages to free him from his curse. I’m ashamed that the thought makes me feel like stabbing my best friend.
Chapter Seventeen
LAYDEN
Present Day
Phoenix and I scrub the surveillance all night long but don’t find a thing. So I set up some bots to keep searching for Ammit’s face on all the video feeds we have in the city, something I probably should have done earlier, but it felt too good sitting beside Phoenix in the dark computer lab doing it manually. It was easy to agree with her that we might see something that the bots could miss.
Still, by three a.m., she was all but falling asleep at her console, so I told her we should get some sleep.
“Come on, let’s go to sleep. I’ve already got the bots ready to take over for us.”
She huffs out a quiet laugh as she scrubs her eyes. “Of course you do.” But at least she nods and stands up. “Have the alert sent to my phone, too, if they find anything?”
“Already done.”
She nods again and starts heading across the hall toward her bedroom.
“Should I head down to…” I leave off uncomfortably, jutting a thumb down the hall toward the room where I used to sleep when I stayed here ten years ago.
She stops and looks over her shoulder at me, then back down the hall toward the rest of the compound. “Oh, right. Shit.” But then she just waves a hand. “There’re no cameras in this part of the compound. We shouldn’t have to put on a performance for Grandfather tonight.”
“Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight.”
She lingers only a moment before disappearing into her bedroom.
Not that I can sleep much after everything that’s happened. Still, I never needed much sleep. I can go for days with none at all and be no worse for wear, but Phoenix is still human. Or, well, mostly human.
I head two doors down to the room that used to be mine. It, too, has been redecorated. I look around after I flip on the light. It’s not as bright, either, now done in tasteful beiges. While she didn’t go for the dreary blacks of the rest of the compound, it’s still as if all the color has been leeched out of her world.
What happened over the last ten years? Now that we’re in this odd place in between who we once were and who I still hope and dream we can become, I have even less idea of what’s possible.