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)
We make good time, despite my mind drifting back to the hottest sex of my life with Talia Grey.
Soon, we break off the trail, about where the guys left police tape tied to a few trees as a marker. We spill out across the grassy slope leading up to the edge of the cliff.
Evidence markers are everywhere, the footsteps the same.
Nothing’s been disturbed.
Slowly, I make my way to the spot where Brian Newcomb would have fallen and look down at the cliff while Rolf leans against my leg.
There’s nothing left of him but evidence markers and a dark stain on the rocks.
Even that will be gone after the storm.
I wish I could say the same about the crows. There are three of the little black-winged bastards today, staring intently from an overhanging branch.
Reminding me I’ll never stop thinking about Jet.
About how I found my brother, this shell of a man who was nothing like I remembered. No longer the big brother who’d step up and take the blows from our father’s fists so they wouldn’t touch me.
Sometimes our old man got to me first anyway, his little ghost-white mutant of a child, but not if Jet could help it.
Mikey, get out of the way! Let me. I’m stronger.
I used to beg him to stop, pulling on his arms.
If Dad was going to hit me no matter what Jet did, he should spare my big brother, so only one of us had to take the pain.
Jet wasn’t having that shit.
He’d just grin at me, crooked and confident, even with his face busted and covered in bruises and ugly red split skin.
Jet, stop! He’ll kill you! I’d scream.
Nah, Bro. If you go down, I’m going too.
I’m good. You’re good. It’s all good.
It wasn’t all good.
It wasn’t all good at fucking all.
I was the one who found him after the beatings were just bad memories.
This emaciated shell of a man in a dirty one-room apartment, slouched against the wall in his boxers and an undershirt stained down the front with vomit.
I hadn’t talked to him for days, and too many missed calls had me worried. I found out fast I had good reason.
My loyal brother died ugly, and I hate the world that let him.
I hate that he was so gaunt, so hollow, I barely recognized him.
I hate that his skin was like one giant bruise.
I hate that it became my final, lasting memory.
Seeing my brother bruised, broken, and this time, not getting up again to face another ass-kicking from life.
Somehow, that was worse in the end than anything our father did.
I blame our old man as much as I blame the Arrendells and the Jacobins.
Maybe they gave him the drugs, but our father gave him the itch.
And now, just like Brian Newcomb, there’s nothing left of Jet but a killing memory and someone else living in his shitty rathole of an apartment with no clue that a man died in the same place where they sleep each night.
“Go on! Get the hell out of here.” I swear at the crows as they take flight, done with torturing me.
At least it’s one of those days where they leave, period.
Rolf lets out a soft whine and lays his head on my knee, just like he did with Talia the other night. I smile faintly, scratching between his ears.
“It’s funny, old man,” I murmur. “I never minded being alone with these thoughts before. Before her, I mean.”
I should not be missing Talia right now.
How the hell have I gotten this attached?
No clue, but there’s no denying she’s under my skin with her soft ways hiding a free spirit, with her shyness, with her determination and her creative fire.
And I’ll only ruin her in the end.
I can’t help myself.
Can’t help wanting to touch her again and again until she’s infected with my darkness, a pale and beautiful thing tarnished like ancient copper.
Get your head back in the game, you miserable fuck.
I lead Rolf on another quick circuit of the crime scene, letting him sniff around in case anything pricks his interest, considering he was a drug dog once.
There are days when I wish I had Rolf’s senses.
Everyone teases me about how I track like a wild animal, but an animal can do what I can’t with scents. They can tell what came first, what came second, what came last, and piece together a more complete story than I ever could.
All Rolf tells me is that there’s nothing too interesting around here. He takes a few sniffs and then immediately loses interest.
I take him down the hill then and do another slow walk where we found the body, expanding out in circles while I scan for his camera—just on the off chance this really was an accident and the camera just fell and wedged itself somewhere we overlooked.