Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
I smile, and farther down the street, Orion pisses on a lamp post. “Let it all out,” I encourage. “You think she’d like my whole body printed on a pillow or just my face?”
He pants up at me.
“Whole body. Agreed.”
I tap on my phone with one hand, then go still.
A crunching noise lifts my gaze. Orion’s ears twitch. Then I hear violent, shattering sounds. Alarm tries to thrust me forward. “I’ll be back in a sec, I promise you.” Hurriedly, I wind the leash around the lamp post. “Don’t talk to strangers.”
He woofs.
Then I bolt. I run toward the crunching, shattering, cracks. Adrenaline courses through my veins, and I cut down the next street. Taking a sharp right. My breath blazes in my chest, and the blue crystal necklace thwacks against my sternum.
Tate. Tate lives in this neighborhood. Ben never told me to take him to his dorm. He told me to drop him off here.
“I just need to get home,” he said on the plane.
Only solace beating through me is knowing Ben considers the Cobalt Estate home. I lengthen my stride, and my tendons and quads scream. I sprint in the dead of night to Tate’s stone mansion. I know the place. I’ve seen it. Security has had our eyes on it before.
Horseshoe driveway. Fancy carport. Lantern wall sconces lit with fire, flames flickering on either side of the door.
I spot the mansion down the road.
And there’s Ben. He has on a blue zippered jacket, the hood fallen off as he smashes a baseball bat into a parked Porsche.
I don’t shout and wake the whole street.
I run harder. My fucked-up hamstring flames in my leg. I don’t stop. Side windows are already busted out of the Porsche. Windshield cracked. He slams the bat onto the hood—so forcefully, with so much raw strength and rage, the metal concaves into a massive dent, and the impact rocks the whole vehicle.
His pain explodes into each swing, and porch lights switch on.
“Ben!” I yell now, coming up to the mailbox.
He sees me, then he sees Tate exiting onto the front lawn.
“What the fuck, man?” Tate sneers. “You’re going to fucking pay for that!” He marches toward Ben, and Ben says nothing, he just drives the end of the baseball bat into Tate’s gut.
Once he’s on the ground, Ben straddles him and lays a fist in his face. He coldcocks him. He’s out. Ben lands another blow in his jaw before I pry him off Tate.
Ben tries to charge forward, but I put him in a lock.
“You gotta stop,” I whisper. “Breathe.”
He fights to take a breath—but also to storm forward. I draw him onto the road and rotate him away from Tate, so he can’t see him anymore. Anger. Hate. Pain. I know how easily it feeds on the pieces of yourself you love. And I don’t want that for Ben. I wouldn’t want it for anyone.
Life rushes through me. Running away from my name. Racing toward those who filled my lungs with air. Meeting Farrow in a tattoo shop. Smiling as we got chased out of a house party. Laughing at Yale with my friends as we strolled leisurely down those college streets. Joking with Omega everywhere, every place. Strutting the catwalk on a tour bus during the holidays.
Watching the sun set in Greece. Dancing in a pub with the one-and-only. Falling in love slowly and abruptly.
I know what I’ve been for myself. I know what people have been for me. I know what I hope I’ll always be for others.
Ben gasps for oxygen, rattling. He screams out. Then Tate’s parents rush onto the lawn. By the guttural wail of the mom, you’d think her son was dead. He just got the shit knocked out of him. “Call 9-1-1, Henry!” she screeches.
“The Porsche!” the dad wheezes.
I release my arms off Ben. “Go home before they call the cops.” They’ll press charges. I can see it in their eyes. Battle of the fists will be battle of the lawyers.
Ben staggers back, his face broken. “I don’t care what happens to me.”
“I care,” I tell him. “Your family cares, and I’ve got a dog tied to a lamp post, so if you care about him, you’ll go untie him and bring him to Luna for me. Please.”
He moves backward, then nods once, twice, and heads for the street before disappearing out of sight.
76
LUNA HALE
I thumb through my notecards with sweaty palms. Final presentations are held in Fizzle’s boardroom. With Uncle Stokes at the head of the long intimidating conference table, I imagine he’s a variant Captain America (my brother is the tried and true) and he’s searching for the newest recruit in the Avengers.
I wait inside the boardroom for my turn. I wonder why they’ve allowed us to observe each other’s presentations. To shake our self-confidence? To cause a nervous perspiration? They shall not succeed! I rub my clammy hand on my white trousers.