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)
Not that I’ll say it out loud. I decided last night, I’ll be nice. No matter how the Walker woman provokes me, no matter how much acid drips from her tongue. She opened the door, then took care of me. Grudgingly, but she did. So I’ll get along with her. Even if it kills me.
The way my head feels, it might.
She hisses. “Ouch, you little shit! Get off my tit.”
What the fuck is she accusing me of? All my good intentions fly out the window. “My hands aren’t anywhere near you, woman. I wouldn’t touch Walker tit if you paid me.”
“Aw, you won’t? Golly-gosh darnit. That was item number one on my Christmas list: pay Reed Knowles to tiddle my tits. I guess I’ll go cry pitiful tears in the bathroom.”
It’s too early and too dark to see anything, but her sarcasm is sharp enough to slice steel. She doesn’t wait for my response. The mattress dips as she lurches over my body—I’m on the open side of the bed, while her side is pushed up against the wall, so over me is the only way off. Though she doesn’t touch me, the jostling feels like a boot to my head and my thigh. The throbbing in both ramps up to a ten, hauling in some nausea and vertigo along with it.
The next few minutes aren’t too clear.
There’s more light the next time I open my eyes. She’s built up the fire and is visibly shivering in front of it with a quilted throw wrapped around her shoulders. Beneath the small blanket is a thick red robe that reaches her knees, plaid flannel pajama pants, and fleece-lined socks decorated with snowflakes—rendering her petite form into a shapeless lump of fuzzy Christmas cheer, topped by an explosion of auburn curls that hang halfway down her back.
Yet my mind keeps lingering on the memory of how she appeared last night, all legs and curves and ferocity. My first thought upon seeing an unfamiliar woman in all her poker-wielding fury: Harris, you lucky bastard. But a glance around the cabin told me she was alone. No Harris. A second look at that wild red hair clued me in to her identity.
I’d been admiring a Walker girl.
That realization slammed into me harder than the tree branch. Hours later, lying in bed, I’m still feeling the effects. I’m trying to think about anything but the way she looked, eyes narrowed and wary, her full lips twisted in a snarl, small hands gripping that poker—silently daring the asshole who just stumbled into her cabin to take one wrong step.
What the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t get that image out of my mind? Yet I can’t focus on anything else. Not with the way my head is pounding. Worse than any hangover I’ve ever had. Worse than the shit I caught at the beginning of the pandemic. I don’t think I’m sick with a virus now, but my whole damn body feels a lot like it did then, lethargic and weak, though I only banged my head and my leg.
“You should take these.”
I don’t know when I closed my eyes. But I must have, because I open them to find the Walker girl standing next to the bed, one arm extended toward me.
Sluggishly, I try to understand what she wants me to do. Shake her hand?
She makes an irritated little moue of her lips, no doubt biting back one of her acid comments before settling for, “You groaned. Like you were dying. It disturbed me.”
“I’ll try to keep my dying on the inside,” I mutter, knowing I won’t, because I’d rather disturb her. Especially if makes her do that pouty thing with her mouth. Then I spot the ibuprofen tablets lying in her palm. Either my vision is doubled or that’s too many pills. “Four?”
In response to my blatant suspicion, she rolls her eyes. “I’m not trying to kill you. These are two hundred milligrams each. When I got my wisdom teeth out, they prescribed an eight hundred milligram dose. So I figure this is safe. Unless ibuprofen is bad for a concussion, but I can’t look that up online right now.” She shrugged. “I suppose it’s a risk. Probably small. Depending on how shitty you feel, it might be worth taking.”
A concussion. Right. That’s the reason for the fog around my brain, muffling every thought except for how pretty she is.
No, not pretty. She’s not that. She’s…something else.
And I do feel shitty enough to take the risk. The room spins when I push myself up to sitting. I close my eyes until the world settles.
When I open them again, I freeze in place—staring at the foot of the bed. Not sure what I’m seeing. Some kind of furry orange gremlin.
“What the hell is that thing?” If there is anything. If it’s not some concussion-induced hallucination.