Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“A girl,” I whisper, fisting my hands and hugging them to my chest so he doesn’t see me shaking.
Colten kisses my forehead. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” He retrieves my clothes from the floor and proceeds to dress me. I feel like a child. “What did the girl say?”
“S-she …” I shake my head. “She screamed. She called … she … she called me the devil.” Forcing my gaze to stay on his, I choke on my next words. “She called me a murderer.”
Colten’s brows draw tight, a smudge of grease on his cheek, pain in his eyes. “Him. Not you.”
I blink.
“Him. Not you,” he repeats.
I think of Dr. Byrd asking me not to say “I” when referring to him. But … it’s getting harder to separate the two in my mind since that life wants to infiltrate this one.
“Do you hear me?”
I nod.
“Him. Not you.”
I start to turn, but he hooks his arm around my waist, pulling my back to his chest while he buries his face into my neck. My bare neck … because I had my hair chopped off … because I’m slowly losing touch with reality.
“We’ll figure this out,” he whispers. “But you’re not alone.” His right hand slides from my stomach to my chest, his palm over my heart.
I cover his hand with mine. “I’m scared,” I whisper.
He hugs me so tightly I swear my bones bend. “Not on my watch … not ever again.” His words settle along my skin, slowly sinking beneath the surface. Does he feel guilty that I got shot on his watch? And how can he protect me from … myself?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I can’t lose her again.
The problem is … I have no fucking clue what to do.
Josie sits on my workbench while I finish messing with my car for the night. She’s wearing a brave face as if I’m the one who needs reassurance.
“I think I’m going to go back to California,” she says.
“Negatory.”
“Negatory? What do you mean by that?”
I chuckle. “Well, the last time you went to California, you tried to dump me.”
“Let you go.”
“When we were seniors, did you feel dumped or let go?”
“Fine, dumped. But—”
“I’ll go with you,” I say, reaching for my socket wrench and glancing up at her.
Her lips twist. “Um … no. Not a good idea.”
“Well, then you aren’t going either.” I crank the socket a few times and poke my head out of the pit. “Why is it not a good idea for me to go with you?”
“Because I don’t want to deal with your reaction to Athelinda.”
“Ath what?”
“Athelinda. She’s the specialist.”
I refocus on the bolt. “And what reaction will I have? She’s a doctor. I’m sure she knows more than I do about this stuff.”
“She’s not a doctor.”
“Professor … whatever.”
“She’s not a professor.”
“You said she works at the university. If she’s not a doctor or a professor, what is she?”
She remains silent.
Again, I poke my head out. “Josie?”
Her nose wrinkles. “I stretched the truth a bit.”
“You lied?”
“That sounds so bad.”
“How should it sound?”
“I don’t know.” She hugs her arms to herself and shrugs. I hate seeing her like this. The girl I knew … the woman I heard behind me at the restaurant … the doctor in her element … is not this Josephine Watts. The shorthaired woman before me has a fragility I never imagined possible. Since the accident, I’ve only had tiny glimpses of her where I haven’t seen deep worry in her dark eyes.
Will the day come when my mind fully wraps around this? I wake every morning thinking this will be the day Josie realizes she wasn’t a serial killer. I go to sleep every night praying for a simple explanation.
There is none.
“There’s nothing you can’t tell me,” I say, climbing out of the pit and wiping my hands. “You know that, right?”
Her gaze lifts from her lap to meet my gaze. “I saw a parapsychologist. And she wasn’t at the university.”
I nod, continuing to work the grease off my hands.
“Her name means one who guards and is immortal. She’s a little eccentric. And she’s died a few times too.”
I cough, tossing the towel aside. “A few times? How is that even possible?” I don’t mean to sound skeptical, but surviving one death is statistically very unlikely, but a few?
Another shrug from her. “How did I know about the buried bodies? And by all means, I’m genuinely asking you because I’d happily jump at another explanation.”
Wedging myself between her dangling legs, I rest my hands on her thighs. “Why do you want to see her again? Because you heard a voice?”
“Because she gave me the impression that she felt sorry for me like a stage four cancer diagnosis. I want to know how to get rid of the visions and the voices. There has to be something.”
“You didn’t ask her about this the first time?”