Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
He didn’t take his t-shirt.
Where could he go at this time of night shirtless?
He might be upstairs…
I gasped and tore toward the corridor. Taking the steps two at a time, my blanket flaring like a cape, I careened into my old bedroom, the office, and finally my new room at the front.
Each empty.
Each dark and dangerous with shadows.
Goblin-Milton stalked my thoughts, ready to throw nasty slurs into my ears. The house cracked and settled, making me prickle with the urge to check behind the doors and hide in the bathroom.
But…I was better now.
I wouldn’t let him win.
Balling my hands, I stood in the dark and dared the phantom of my past to mock me.
And nothing.
The only thing I heard was the pounding of my heart and silence. Painful, heavy silence that I hadn’t heard since I’d gotten Peng. Just having his little soul in the house had eradicated that emptiness. That cavernous loneliness that seemed to have its own frequency.
Fresh horror filled me. “Peng?” Racing back down the stairs, I turned on all the lights. My eyes scanned every nook and cranny, searching for the ginger fluffball.
“Penguin?”
Not in the kitchen.
Not in the living room or snug or laundry.
“Peng?!”
Bolting outside, I stood on the deck and blinked into the overgrown garden. “Peng!”
No meow.
No hiss.
My knees threatened to buckle. Tears broke my control and rolled.
“Here, kitty, kitty. Where are you?”
I stood trembling, waiting, begging him to answer me.
I-I have to find him.
Flying off the deck, I ran barefoot over the grass. The blanket flared out; my fingers lost their grip. The heavy protection plummeted to the ground, leaving me completely nude beneath the stars.
Shit!
I couldn’t go running through the neighbourhood naked, no matter how closeknit we all were.
“Peng!”
Still no reply.
Had he run away? Got hit by a car? Stolen?
“Penguin, please!”
Fear choked me as I galloped back inside. Gritting my teeth so I didn’t give into my sobs, I wrenched on the same clothes I’d been wearing before X stripped me, then shot back into the night.
Slamming through the back gate, I skidded down the garden path and tripped onto the road. “Peng? Come here, little man. Where are you?”
Turning on the spot, I looked up and down Ember Drive.
No flash of a tail.
No gleam of green eyes.
Doing another circle, I spied a car parked next to Zander’s on his drive. I’d seen it before. It belonged to Colin, his colleague.
Perhaps they’ve seen him?
Jogging up Zander’s front veranda, I rang the doorbell.
I tapped my foot and kept scanning the street.
Come on. Hurry up.
No one came.
“Argh!” Charging down the steps, I paused on his driveway. I could door knock all my neighbours, but Peng knew Zander. If he was going to visit anyone, it would be him, right?
Feeling a little guilty for trespassing, I ran down the side of his house, heading toward his back garden. I wouldn’t be interrupting too badly. He couldn’t be asleep if he had company. So why hadn’t he answered the door?
Weaving my way around the intricate box hedging some landscape designer had done for him, I looked up just in time for Colin to force a large glass of water into Zander’s hands.
Zander sat slouched in a rattan chair in the conservatory. The all-glass walls gave me a perfect view of the potted ferns and redheaded doctor who looked as if he’d been run over.
Sympathy clenched my aching heart.
He worked too much.
He cared about others too much.
Did something happen in surgery?
Had he lost a patient?
He must have because he looked as if he’d lost something desperately important. His eyes pinched, and jaw clenched, and when he tossed his head back, he spilled most of the water on his leg then almost dropped the glass. “That was her. I know it was.”
Colin slid into the matching chair and reached over the small table to keep him upright. Extracting the glass from his friend’s fingers, he placed it safely on the table and shook his head. “I wish there was a miracle pill to cure drunken idiots like you.”
I froze in the garden, hidden behind a trimmed bush.
I didn’t want to intrude if Zander was having a bad night. I’d heard doctors hid their mental health to be the best they could be for their patients. But if Zander was this bad, it meant work had gone very bad and I had no right to—
“I should’ve opened the door,” Zander groaned. “I need to start making her want me like this so I don’t lose her.”
The open door of the conservatory delivered their voices directly to me.
I shouldn’t eavesdrop, yet…I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Yeah, no one is gonna like you like this, believe me. You definitely shouldn’t let her see you in this condition,” Colin muttered. “You’re a mess. The moment she saw you, she’d figure everything out.”
“Nope.” Zander tried to shake his head but slouched deeper in the chair. “She wouldn’t. Like you said, Superman worked. She has no idea. None.” He zipped his lips with a drunken grimace. “That’s why when he dies, she will never know.”