Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“We’re safe,” Kyle assures her, patting her hands. “Drake’s like me. Mikey’s like you guys. Uh, Mikey?” He peers around the archway into the kitchen. “Down the hall, the bedroom, there’s a closet full of stuff. I doubt I’m your size, but maybe my boyfriend has something you can borrow.”
Mikey lifts his face from the sink, out of breath, dripping with water. “You … want me … to go and fish something … out of your boyfriend’s closet …?”
“Yep.”
“I’m fucking starved,” says Mikey, running his wet hands over his reddened face, then heads for the hallway as Cade, Layna, and Jeremy watch with unblinking eyes, paying witness to the stranger in a spiked leather collar and shiny golden thong disappear.
Cade lifts an eyebrow. “Are we … gonna get an explanation for … whatever the hell that was?”
Drake has closed the front door and is slowly walking around the room, taking in the atmosphere. He pulls off his denim jacket, hugs it to himself, then comes to a stop in front of the painting of the lion, studying it in silence.
Kyle is drawn to the table full of items and peculiar aromas. In front of Cade’s seat, he notices a large book. It is opened to a page that makes entirely no sense at all, as if the words are all hieroglyphics, the illustrations utter nonsense. The book’s hard cover appears to be thick and leathery with metal trimming, almost giving it the appearance of a weathered treasure chest.
“Is this … uh … some kind of spell book?” Kyle guesses.
Cade comes up to his side. “Tell me something. Do you see words? Can you read any of this?”
The question makes Kyle chuckle. “Who the heck could?”
“Really? You don’t see any words? None at all?”
Being asked again brings Kyle pause. He peers down at the pages once more, confused. “Is this a puzzle? All I see are a ton of weird-ass symbols and gibberish. This in code or something? Is there a legend?” He looks at Cade, only to find her smirking across the table at Layna. He glances back and forth between them. “What am I not getting?”
“See?” says Cade to her daughter.
Layna cradles her head in her hands. “Ugh, so weird.”
“Elias said the same thing,” Cade explains to a baffled Kyle, coming around to his other side. “But when Layna and I look at these pages?” She touches a word that looks like a bunch of tiny curlicues and zigzags. “That reads ‘cinnamon’ to me in perfect English, written out as plain as day.”
Kyle looks at the page again. “Cinnamon?? The fuck?”
“Exactly. I look at that word, I literally see ‘cinnamon’. Not the chicken-scratch nonsense you and Elias seem to see.”
Kyle peers across the table. “And what about you, Jeremy? Can you read this?”
Jeremy stares blankly back.
Cade leans into Kyle. “He’s … a whole other issue.”
“A whole other issue?” Kyle turns to Cade. “What are you talking about? Jeremy can’t speak? Why can’t he speak? Why is there this big scary book sitting on my kitchen table?”
“Elias’s mom gave it to us.” That explanation does nothing to curb Kyle’s bafflement. “You never told me who he really is. He’s the son of the Madame Rose? Seriously? All this time you guys have been canoodling? Kyle, Kyle … I thought you and I were friends, and you didn’t even spill the tastiest tea you had.”
“Kyle …?”
The sound of Elias’s voice is electrical. Kyle spins, finds him standing in the living room wearing just a towel around his waist, hair wet, golden brown skin aglow in the candlelight.
Kyle rushes across the room and crashes against his body for a happy, unrelenting embrace. Elias’s arms close around him, the two hugging so tightly, it aches. At once, Kyle becomes flooded with an urge to cry. Is it his own urge? Elias’s? Are these tears of happiness or relief?
Then Kyle steps back. “Sorry. I’m dirty. You just showered. I literally spent last night in a hole.”
Elias lifts an eyebrow. “A hole. Okay.” He glances over his shoulder, then leans into Kyle’s ear. “You gonna tell me who this pink-haired punk is? And also why there’s some stripper in a thong rummaging through our closet right now?”
“Yeah. I just … I need …” Then suddenly Kyle is unable to answer a damned thing, hugging Elias again and spending all his attention enjoying the sense of feeling at home with his face buried in Elias’s warm, strong chest. In this moment, nothing else in the world matters.
Nothing else at all.
The peace lasts about seven minutes as Kyle explains where he’s been, until the wrong words spill out of his mouth. “Wait, wait, wait a fucking minute,” says Elias, then points at Drake, who stands near the front window with his finger through the curtains, keeping watch. “That punk is Lazarus’s brother?? Lazarus’s real-as-fuck brother? You brought Lazarus’s real-as-fuck brother here?”