Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Everything is heavy. So heavy.
Chapter Eighteen
priest
Icrash against my bedroom door to slam it closed, the bottle of whiskey slipping from my fingers when the room swirls around me in a blur. I can count on my hand how many times I’ve been drunk.
Twice. The first time, and now.
I learned quickly how to handle my liquor, a secret passed down from every father of the EKC. Bordering alcoholism, we were trained to start by sipping alcohol at a young age, before it moved to a finger a day, to a glass a day, before moving to a glass and a sip, and a glass and a finger and so on. Handling our liquor to never be vulnerable was one of the first lessons we learned.
I don’t even want to know how much I put away tonight, and it still wasn’t enough.
A kaleidoscope of patterns carves a story into the wooden door, one that I’m sure she’ll tell one day. A story of a girl. Of the dark. Of death. Instead, my fingers find the cold handle and I twist it open onto the spill of darkness.
My muscles relax the longer I stay in place, but when the sweet hint of her scent hits me, it’s a brutal reminder of what triggered my drunkenness to begin with. I wanted her to know how much I hate her. How much I despise her. She’s everything I hate about the human species. She loves too much, cares about shit that I’ll never understand, and fucking smiles way too damn wide.
I hate her.
Despise her.
I want to wipe her from this earth so I never have to be reminded of the kind of stain something so delicate can leave on a place so dark.
But I can’t.
I. Fucking. Can’t.
Not because I don’t want to, or because there’s some lost place inside of me that feels something for her, despite Vaden’s words, because there isn’t. I hate everything about Luna Nox, and there is no changing that.
My feet carry me down the familiar concrete path. As soon as I reach the end, dots dance behind my eyes as my shoulder crashes against the wall. Resting my hand over my stomach, I clear my throat and slowly lift my head up to the room in front of me.
Walls spoiled in white permanent chalk, drawings, words she’d hear. Everything reminded me of her while I was too busy trying to do the one thing to get rid of her.
The plush carpet takes your weight when you step foot on it, and even lost in the land of too much whiskey, I know one thing for sure.
I want this.
Her.
“Hello, Darling…” I whisper hoarsely, rolling to my back and leaning up to stare at the blank ceiling of color. “Did you miss me?”
The sound of her dragging herself across the carpet draws my attention down to her body.
“I don’t know,” she answers, and I angle my head to the side, trying to widen my eyes.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. Fucking Luna.
“Did you miss me?” Her memories sting far more than they ever have, but I’m not willing to touch on why.
In a fit of laughter, my legs give way as the wall catches my fall. Drawing my legs up, I rest one arm on my knee, widening them further for her. Deep mauve-painted nails crawl through the darkness.
“Well did you?” The familiarity of her voice is both ends of a curse.
My tongue dampens my bottom lip to hide my smirk. “I don’t know, Darling…did I?”
Something vibrates against my thigh, pulling me out of my head, and my agitation has me rolling my eyes as I fish it out of my pocket. The bright light from my screen burns my retinas when I slide to answer.
“What?”
“We’re in the Watch Tower.”
“You’re early.” My teeth clench. That’s twice in one night I’m unable to hide my agitation.
“Technicalities are not my thing, dearest brother. See you soon.”
With the lights out, I’m back in the confinement of my nightmares, the kind I crave. My thumb finds her burgundy lips before it slides down the middle toward her chin in a perfect river of spilled blood. “I’ll be back.”
“No you won’t…” She shakes her head slowly, retreating into the shadows of the room.
Writings on the farthest wall catch my eye. They are the last ones she drew when she was in here. It feels like a lifetime ago now.
If you want to feel pain, love him.
I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but more importantly for what I’m going to do.
Never be enough.
Pushing up from the carpet, I stumble backward, clutching the bottle of whiskey between my fingers and making my way back through the hallway. As soon as the door’s closed, Evie’s face sobers me up faster than snorting a line of coke.
She crosses her arms in front of herself in the same way she’s always done whenever she’s about to judge some shit. “Well, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say that you look a little on edge.”