Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
She always tells me I never call.
Usually, there’s no reason, and I’ve never liked the little reminders that I have so little to report on our check-ins.
I’ve got a hell of a lot to report now.
I tap Jane’s contact and call, the burn of the liquor turning my guts hot with determination.
It’s past time to kick things up a notch.
I’m going to make damned sure that even if Talia Grey regrets ever loving me, she’ll never want for anything again.
19
DARKNESS PRESENT (TALIA)
When I was thirteen years old, I had my first and only crush.
I never really spent much time around kids my own age.
I just saw them from a distance when I was allowed out for walks around the playground, dragging my oxygen tank behind me like that girl in Bates Motel—I know, I know, there are a few too many parallels in my life, from the creepy murder town to the naïve girl with the oxygen tank who falls for men who turn out to be trouble.
My first brush with trouble was Red Harrow.
His name wasn’t actually Red. I think it was Ryker, but everyone called him Red because his hair was an even louder crimson than mine. That’s what grabbed my attention and made me feel an instant kinship with him. I’d watch him from the bench where I sat with my little tank propped against my thigh, a book open in my lap, pretending to read a fantasy novel.
Actually, I was watching Red.
He was two years older. Fifteen.
Tall and lean and strong, and he’d come to the playground after school to play basketball with other boys his age. He had sun-tanned skin and freckled shoulders that showed in his loose jersey, his muscles flexing every time he jumped.
Even now, I don’t know if I really liked him.
I hardly knew him.
Was I just jealous with how gracefully he moved? With how he could break a sweat and get winded and run like mad for hours without dying?
How he could play and run. How effortless it was.
How he took it all for granted.
In my head, I dreamed he’d notice me and fall in love, and somehow his love would make me strong like him.
Vampirism again—go figure—only more like the Snow White kind where I’d borrow his strength from a kiss.
Even then, I wanted a hero to rescue me.
I wanted to be saved and transformed, never broken and weak again.
But Red Harrow didn’t rescue me.
He never even noticed me until one fine day when the ball got away from his friends on the paved lot they used as a court.
It came bouncing over to me.
I put my book down and picked it up, wobbling to my feet.
I couldn’t help staring.
I’d never held a basketball before, and the orange texture was interesting.
It was new and wonderful, and I was so absorbed in this simple experience that I didn’t notice Red jogging over until his voice hit me like a hammer.
“Hey, kid. Give the ball back.”
I froze. I couldn’t even lift my head, but I raised my eyes, staring at him.
My crush, so close I could smell him and see the cocky twist to his smirk. His bright-red hair was sweaty.
My heart beat so hard.
I opened my mouth, trying to speak.
But all that fell out was a long wheeze, like someone trying to blow into a flute and failing. Just this godawful flapping sound around the prongs of the oxygen tank’s hose, fitted in my nostrils.
First Red blinked.
Then he burst into the harshest laughter.
“The fuck? Are you deaf too? You sound like a donkey!”
My eyes burned.
I tried to protest—no, no, I’m a girl! I’m just a girl who loves you—but all that came out was another shrill wheeze.
Then a lot more of them, all loud, honking gasps.
An attack coming on so fast I barely felt it. I dropped the ball and I fumbled for my inhaler in my dress, my vision spinning.
Red didn’t rescue me that day.
He just watched and laughed.
Before it was over, he was mimicking my honking, flapping his arms like a demented goose and calling his friends over to join in.
I could only half hear them over my wheezing breaking into sobs.
All while the boy I naively loved mocked me and called me a flipping donkey.
They were still doing it by the time I shoved the inhaler in my mouth and eased that killing tightness.
While I tried to breathe, I glared at them through the tears, tried to make my quivering lips work to speak, to shout, to tell them to go straight to hell.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t curse those rotten kids.
I couldn’t do anything but cry while the boys cackled on.
That day taught me how cruel people can be.
It also taught me that no one was ever coming to save me.
But it turned out I didn’t need Red Harrow or anyone else, not after I dragged myself home with my oxygen tank banging behind me.