Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“Tell me something. What is it about me that you don’t like?”
“There’s absolutely nothing about you I don’t like. You’re perfect. You’re—”
“Is it that I’m a city girl? I hate spiders, and you give them new homes? You could survive at the top of Mt. Fuji with a popsicle stick and some Tic Tacs. What happened to make you hate the city? Were your parents hippies, and you’re some anti-establishment adventure junkie?” She finishes in a breathy huff as I search for a way to explain.
“No.” I draw a ragged breath, working my way back to her, scooping the crank light up off the floor and whipping the handle around until the light perks up. Maybe the only way through this is to tell her the things I want to forget. The things that made me promise to give Hailey a different life than I had. “My father was in the army. We traveled, he drank, but things were okay. Mom was sort of never really there. My dad wasn’t the warmest guy, and later, after he was injured and left the army, he was less than warm.”
She scoots over in an invitation for me to sit, her eyes as welcoming as her mouth was last night.
“And?” she says, resting her elbow on the back of the sofa, leaning her head against her palm so she’s facing me as I drop onto the cushion next to her, the entire sofa popping up off the floor when I do. It’s taking everything I have to fight the urge to pin her down and have a feast between her legs. “What’s this city prejudice you have all about?”
Rain sprays against the windows sounding like a sea of pebbles trying to come through. The walls vibrate with the cracking thunder and white flashes of lightning cast shadows across the flawless skin of her face.
“We moved to Philly. I found out about being hungry and how mean whiskey can make someone.” I scratch my fingers over my jaw on a long exhale. “Short version, Dad left, Mom went off the rails. Whenever we stayed with Dad, there was a new step-mother. None of them good. My brother was ten, I was sixteen, when we moved into an even shittier part of the city with my mom, after Dad’s newest wife decided she wanted them to start their own family and we didn’t fit in. I was the man of the house, but I couldn’t protect my brother. Our house was robbed more than once. Within a couple years, my brother was running the streets. Mom was checked out. The city ate them both up and nothing I did changed anything.”
I palm my forehead, squeezing my temples with one hand as I rest my other on her knee like that connection is going to help me somehow. I don’t think I’ve said so many words in a row in decades.
Summer nods. “You lost a lot but the city didn’t take it.”
I don’t indulge in memories of the past often, and the uneasy tightness around my throat reminds me why. I don’t know what to do with emotion besides act out. It makes me want to punch and break things. That’s why I’ve distracted myself with dangerous activities. It doesn’t leave any room for remembering.
“What happened to your brother? You talk to him still?” Summer asks as I keep my eyes focused on nothing facing forward.
“A stray bullet. Came through our front fucking window. Nick died before the ambulance even got there.”
I look to see her fingers pressed to her mouth, eyes welling, but she doesn’t say anything and I appreciate her silence.
“Out here,” I explain, “I can protect Hailey. I know the dangers, and I know how to prepare for them, how to fight them. I’ve spent my whole life doing that. But the city is chaos. There’s no order to it. No honor. No hierarchy. It makes no sense to me.”
Another bolt of lightning cuts through the sky over the tree tops. In the bright flash, I catch a dark shape out the window lumbering around in front of the cabin.
Fuck, my pack is out there. I was so fucking turned around when she ran, I left it.
As the thunder shakes the house, Summer hunches over, hands looping behind her neck.
“You okay with storms?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the movement outside, giving her knee a soft squeeze.
“I’m okay so long as I’m not out in them.” She peeks up from her crouched position. “We’ll wait here until it passes, right?”
Daylight has turned into dusk under the storm clouds. “Yeah—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“What the hell is that?” she shrieks, pointing again at the window, only this time, I know it’s not just a spider. A series of three lightning flashes illuminate the sky, the woods, and the hulking bear rises onto her feet about fifty feet from the front of the cabin, sniffing the air as three smaller versions of her toddle along behind.