Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
She scoffs. “How long is a while? A year and a half ago? Because that’s when you stole my mom’s house out from under her. Remember? She said you were there. You and your dad.”
Angela. That’s her mom. That one, I’m certain of. I’ve seen her name too many times over the course of my life, in continuous lawsuits that all failed and on my business’s social media accounts until I blocked her. And the last time I saw her…
“I wouldn’t say we stole the house out from under her.” But my head’s too fucked to think about how I should say it. “I remember there was some tax trouble.”
“Tax trouble?” She gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “As if your dad’s cronies at the county didn’t cause that trouble by reassessing the property value for far more than it’s worth. Far more than anyone could reasonably pay, dismissing her appeals, then slapping her with a levy. And the man who bought it for nothing just happened to be your dad.”
“Pretty sure it wasn’t for nothing.” Though I can’t recall exactly how much it was.
“Your idea of nothing is a hell of a lot different from mine.” Her glare sears me from across the cabin. “But the money was never the point, was it? She said your father gloated as the papers were signed. That he crowed about how he couldn’t wait to bulldoze it all. How he couldn’t wait to destroy everything my dad once loved.”
My face is hot as fuck. And the heat’s sinking in deeper and deeper. “He did gloat.”
“But you didn’t? Can you honestly say you weren’t thrilled the Walkers were brought so low? Or that you weren’t glad to see the home where my mom and sister lived razed to the ground? Last night you said you’d be happy if another Walker got what was coming to them. So tell me you didn’t enjoy seeing my mom’s house bulldozed.”
“I can’t.” Not after all the shit that woman pulled. “I was even there to watch it happen.”
My brain must be completely scrambled, because it takes the widening of her eyes—as if even she is stunned that I’d admit to something so callous—to realize that maybe I should have held my tongue on that one. That I should have softened it. Especially since I’m at her mercy here. And she’s been taking care of me.
Instead of grabbing up the poker and giving me another whack to the head, though, she merely sets her jaw and returns to stabbing berries.
I watch her, my gaze wandering over that lip, her freckles, then that hair. My mind wanders with it. Absently I rub the crescent scar below my thumb. Remembering the last time I saw this one. Even then, with wild red hair. The recollection is hazy. Mostly a memory of being shocked that she’d bitten me, and of the blood on the white dress shirt that I’d worn to the funeral home. And how my father was shouting at her mother, and her mother was screaming at my father, and her older sister was pulling her away and calling her—
“Abbie.”
Her head jerks up and she stares at me, eyes wide. And I was right. Hazel.
“That’s what it is. Yeah? Abbie.”
Her jaw clenches. Her chin dips in a small nod.
I suppose she could have pretended I was wrong. Could have strung me along like she’s stringing those berries, while holding onto whatever pleasure it’d given her to deny me in the first place. But I suspect this isn’t a woman in the habit of lying. Or in the habit of saying anything but what she truly believes.
Abbie.
“I guess I’m thinking of you now,” I tell her.
“Don’t,” she says, and returns to her decorations.
Don’t. But I won’t be able to help thinking of her. Won’t be able to help looking at her, either. She’s too…pretty is not the right description. Not when I think of her poker-wielding fury. Not when I think of how her eyes shoot fire. But I can’t think of the right word to describe her.
That’s not like me.
But the throbbing mist around my brain keeps closing in, and thinking hurts too much. Despite sleeping all night, the heat and the fog are dragging me down again.
It’s too much effort to fight them.
Abbie
Abbie
I’m not sorry that Reed stays quiet in one of the big armchairs all morning. Sleeping…or maybe he passed out. Not sure. He stirs around noon, just as I start thinking about lunch. Something that’ll be easy on his stomach. Last night, he looked as if he might puke at any second. He didn’t eat anything this morning, either. So best to make a meal that’ll be as easy going down as it is coming up, just in case he can’t keep it down.
Combined with the snow outside, seems like it’s the perfect day for minestrone. And if it turns out Reed doesn’t like soup…well, fuck him. He can eat it or he can starve. I don’t care.