Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Everything shimmers.
How could she?
The boy in that picture loved the girl. And she loved him back.
I take one last look at Domhnall, still chugging whisky. The bottle that was three-fourths full when he started is almost empty.
Still on all fours, I scramble down the nearest hallway and into the dark.
TWENTY
DOHMNALL
As the first rays of dawn shine through the windows, I stumble after her, barely managing to put the whisky bottle back on the cart without dropping it.
“Hey,” I call. “Where do you think you’re going? I’m not done with you yet.”
Immediately I pull my phone out of my pocket, slapping myself for some clarity amid the warmth of the alcohol. Fuck. What am I doing drinking? I know better than to get caught up in such maudlin weaknesses.
I watch the phone for any perimeter alarms. Whenever an outer house door opens or closes, I’m alerted. But to my surprise, none of them trip.
She’s staying inside the house? What the hell’s she playing at now?
My head smacks into one of the poster paper photos I got blown up and hung from the wall last night using invisible twine. Laying my trap.
My little pet has been pretending to be so obedient lately, so suddenly and out of the blue? Rookie move. I tried it with her father week one. Thinking if I just played along things would go easier and I’d figure a way out of each session he managed to corner me in.
Always, he found some way to get me into his office. Every time, I swore I wouldn’t be stupid enough to land myself back there.
But things were always so strapped with me trying to support Moira and me all on our own. With the money I was making with Mr. Harper, things were finally looking up for once in our shithole lives. I was learning things—real skills, programming shit I was never gonna have the money to pay a university degree for.
I was already in too deep by the time he started pulling the pervert shit. I’d gotten Moira and me outta the rat-infested closet we’d had to rent when we first got to Dublin and into a real apartment building. She was settled into her second semester at a private school, fitting in when that’d never happened before.
And then there was Madison.
What the fuck are you supposed to do when your girlfriend’s father reaches down, and the accidental touches you’ve been trying to justify as those of an effusive mentor suddenly take that fucked up turn?
I mean, I knew about twisted fucks that liked to diddle little kids.
But I was seventeen. A man, at least to my own mind. Almost grown.
I’d heard this happened sometimes with bosses down at the mine. Lads and I joked how we’d kick a gobshite’s teeth down his spine and out his arsehole if they ever tried it with us.
Turns out when the real thing was happening, I just shook there in feckin’ disbelief about what Mr. Harper was doing to me, not making a move and silent as a mouse.
Then he ordered me to get on the floor like a dog.
I didn’t realize it then, but it was the same voice he’d been using with me for months as he taught me code. He’d been conditioning me all along to obey him.
I didn’t really know what the fuck was happening. I just know I got on the floor like a dog.
“Madison,” I call out, my voice almost sing-song. It’s probably just the alcohol, but I feel loose now that Madison’s sins are acknowledged out in the open between us. Free. Let’s be done with all the charades.
In this, let us finally be what we never were: ourselves.
“Oh Madison,” I call again. “There’s really no use in hiding.” I lift my phone. “I have cameras on every room in this property.”
I flip through the feed of the first-floor rooms, sighing impatiently. “This is tedious, Madison. Aren’t we a little too old for hide and seek?”
I don’t see her on the first floor, so I check the hallways, the stairs, and finally, the second floor. There hasn’t been enough time to have made it to the third, yet. I’m methodical, keeping an eye on the stairwells and elevator while I check each room.
Nothing.
And still no perimeter alarms.
Then I frown, knowing it’s probably a waste of time but flicking over to the basement screen, anyway. And there she is.
What the fuck is Madison doing in the basement?
I put two fingers to the phone to zoom in further. At first, I’m immediately furious. I swear to fuck, if this is another cunting trick—
I stomp over the back stairwell to the basement. I stab in the code to the keypad—the same one as downstairs. 2016. The year my life went all to fuck. The year I met Madison Harper.