Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Nothing bothered him lately. Sure, there was the undertone of the murders and the sheriff who wanted to destroy everything, but even that didn’t seem to cause ripples in the calm waters we’d entered.
There was an odd smell in the kitchen, and. not like that time when Lucas had tried to make paella. It was bitter. Coppery.
Granted, my sense of smell was magnified right then. I could no longer stand having bananas in the house. Something about the smell turned my stomach. Also, no one could write with permanent markers anywhere around me. The thought of it alone made my nose wrinkle.
My phone buzzed as the smell became stronger the closer I got to the pantry.
“Baby,” Elden greeted. “Where the fuck are you?” There was worry in his voice, like there always was these days when we weren’t together. He also sounded anxious. Swiss was definitely at the pool party, and the tension between them remained. Even though they had been somewhat of a team during the raid, things reverted back to their tense holding pattern straight afterward.
Mom’s fury toward Elden had cooled entirely. She wasn’t good at holding grudges anymore, she was entirely too cheerful. Plus, despite her misgivings about me being pregnant so young and her being a grandmother to a child who was less than two years younger than her son, she was happy. Excited.
“I’m at the club, getting brownies,” I said, pointing out the obvious. The pantry door was slightly open. “I swear, if some biker has already eaten them all, we’re going to engage in a blood feud.”
“A blood feud?” Elden repeated, obviously amused.
“This is serious,” I snapped. “As my … baby daddy, you must promise to engage in battle with whomever ate the brownies.”
We still had not nailed down what we were to each other. No labels. I was already terrified enough that I was having a baby so young, that I was fitting in to all those clichés I’d been certain I was going to stay away from. Even worse, they felt comfortable to me. I liked them.
There was a pause where I imagined Elden was swallowing a chuckle. I also imagined he was struggling with the ‘baby daddy’ comment. He was not worried about clichés, about ancient, patriarchal structures. He just wanted me to be his.
And I wanted that too. Yet here I was, fighting against it, almost seven months pregnant with his baby.
“Okay, baby, I swear I will engage in battle with whoever ate the brownies,” he agreed solemnly.
I searched for the light in the walk-in pantry, flicking it … nothing happened.
“Hang on,” I told Elden. “Apparently, badass bikers can’t replace lightbulbs… Or mop the floor,” I added as I stepped in something sticky while I was turning on the flashlight on my phone.
Elden replied, I was sure he did. But I didn’t hear anything after the shrill howl entered my ears as the flashlight illuminated the narrow space in the pantry.
Maybe I screamed, though I think I let more of a shocked whimper. I really hoped I didn’t scream, it was far too cliché, and I hated when they always made the woman scream in movies.
“Violet,” Elden sounded urgent, his voice instantly changing, that warm teasing completely gone. So I must’ve let out some kind of sound to trigger his alarm.
My hand shook but didn’t move from where it was illuminating the body of one of the club girls. Jenna, I think her name was. We’d spoken a couple of times, she was sweet. She loved fantasy books too. Her little brother was going to Harvard. She was really proud of him.
And now she was lying in the pantry, covered in blood. It was everywhere, splattered on the walls. I was standing in it.
“Violet,” Elden repeated, louder now.
”J-Jenna’s dead,” I stuttered, my breath catching in my chest. The world swayed as I tried to blink the image away. It didn’t seem real. Couldn’t be real. There was so much blood. Too much. It seemed like an over eager extra on a horror movie set had gone overboard with the ketchup.
It couldn’t be real because that would mean I was standing there looking at the brutalized, dead body of a girl who had a brother in Harvard and liked to read books about magic.
“She, someone stabbed her,” I continued whispering, unable to look away. “Like a lot. Her eyes are open.” I stared at them. They were hazy. Empty.
“Violet, get out of there right now,” Elden demanded with a tinge of panic in his voice.
People spoke in the background of the phone. I didn’t hear what they said.
“That means she’s dead, right?” I asked. “Maybe she isn’t, maybe she’s just … in shock.”
I wished desperately for that to be true, even though the blood, the gruesome state of her body meant she was definitely dead. My brain could not accept that I was staring at a dead person. One who I’d seen alive, happy, smiling yesterday.