Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“That’s not all she’s mad about.”
From under my hood, I can just barely make out the way his jaw tightens. “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen again. Right?”
“What about what just happened this morning?”
“Not the same thing, and you know it. There’s a difference between letting her participate in something she wants and tying her to the bed when I’m not there.”
What he doesn’t understand—and I can’t find the words to say—is this morning was hot… but tying her up was better. Forcing her, feeling the way her body tried to resist but couldn’t help giving in, giving me what I wanted. There’s nothing in this world that could match the satisfaction I got from that. And now that I’ve had it, how am I supposed to live without it?
“I didn’t want to say this last night,” I mutter as we roll down the street, passing only a few cars this early in the morning. “But a lot of the reason I stayed away was for her sake, too. Because what I did to her that night at the apartment is something I fantasized about the whole time I was away from her. I know that’s probably weird for you to hear, but it’s true.”
He is quiet, gripping the wheel tighter but keeping his thoughts to himself. I wish he wouldn’t. He can call me an asshole or threaten to kick me out of his life forever, and it would be better than sitting here wondering what’s going through his head.
Finally, he clears his throat when we’re a few blocks from the warehouse. “You’ll just have to figure out how to get over that. I’m not going to let you hurt her. I love her. And we might have learned a pretty fucked-up version of love when we were growing up, but that shit stops now.”
We’re both quiet for the rest of the drive, which doesn’t take all that long. My car is where I left it, and there are no other cars parked either on the street or in the lot besides Dennis’s vehicle. The place looks even worse in the early morning, rays of sun highlighting what darkness hides. There’s something depressing about it.
“So what’s the plan?” Colt asks, since we never talked about it on the way here.
“Burning them is the first thing that comes to mind,” I confess. “But I saw a bunch of stuff next to the building last night, like tarps and shit. We could wrap them up, put them in my trunk, take them down to the river, and dump them. Fire might draw attention.”
Scrubbing his hand over his head, he groans. “Now I wish we had just gotten it over with last night.”
“But you had to think of Leni, too.” I look around to make sure there’s no one nearby—no random homeless people or whatever—before getting out and lowering my hood. Colt’s trying his best to pretend it doesn’t freak him out, seeing me like this, but he sucks at acting. He can’t hide his pained expression when he first looks at me. I wonder how long it will be before he gets used to it and if I’ll be around long enough for that to happen, since I still don’t think it would be a good idea for me to stay.
As it turns out, there’s a bigger problem to deal with, and we find out what it is once we enter the old warehouse we left just hours ago.
“What the hell?” Colt says, walking more slowly, taking one careful step after another as he looks around in confusion, while I stare at the place where I watched Deborah bleed to death.
There’s still a dark stain on the floor where her blood poured out onto the concrete. The memory is clear—the way her life force bubbled out of her mouth when she took her final breaths.
But she’s not there. Neither is Dennis. The car they used is still outside, but they’re both gone.
Somebody has been here.
And they know what I did.
19
COLT
“Hey! How was your weekend?”
I have to consciously put on a happy face for one of the guys from my calculus class as we pass on the quad on Monday morning. “You know, nothing big. Kept it quiet. You?”
I shouldn’t have bothered asking since Leni’s anxious, choked noise next to me steals my focus. She’s remembering Friday night. How things were the opposite of quiet.
After telling him I’ll see him later, we keep moving, hand in hand, down the wide path. It’s a gorgeous day, with the sun’s rays dancing through the tree branches and painting shadows on the ground. Who am I turning into, noticing things like that?
“Are you honestly in such a good mood, or are you pretending?” Leni’s tight whisper reminds me not everybody shares my opinion about the way life is right now.