 by Daryl Banner.jpg)
Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
But where else would Kyle Amos go after he's lost everything?
Kyle paid the ultimate price to become what he is.
Then the greatest betrayal imaginable has left him stranded and alone,
everyone he loved reduced to a pile of ashes in his past.
Now he lives with his dark secret
in the middle of a cursed desert town that keeps plenty of its own,
a place where even the tumbleweeds avoid.
Kyle's secret is threatened one fateful morning, moments before dawn,
by the arrival of a handsome young man named Elias,
shrouded in mystery, sexy as sin,
with eyes as intense as the sun itself.
A man who vows to protect Kyle with his own mortal life.
Suddenly Kyle's past begins to awaken. Old foes return to threaten his newfound peace.
How can Kyle hope to outrun his past when it won't stay dead and gone where it belongs?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1.
Hello, I Kiss With Teeth.
—∙—
Kyle tries to pick up the phone, but his fingers are too slippery with blood.
No police, comes Tristan’s voice from behind, stopping him. No ambulance. It’s no use. They’re gone. We have to go.
“B-But my mom …” chokes Kyle, overwhelmed. “Dad … Kaleb …”
They’re asleep, just imagine they’re asleep. Let’s go, now, come.
Kyle stumbles out of the kitchen, dragged by Tristan’s cold hand. Feet slippery, slick floor. The stench of death and sweat, hyacinth spilling out of an overturned vase, tiny purple petals, he keeps moving. His foot catches something. Glancing back, a face painted red, unrecognizable, cheek pressed flat against the tile in a pool of spreading blood. His mom or dad? His brother? Shouldn’t he know?
But all he sees now is red. Red on the blades of the ceiling fan. Red across the keys of the family piano where he learned to play Heart and Soul with his younger brother.
Red footprints over the front lawn as they flee the house.
Streetlamps buzzing like angry red halos over their heads.
Even the midnight sky seems red, the stars like tiny rubies pressed against a canvas primed in black gesso, a masterpiece.
Run until nothing looks familiar. Tristan and Kyle race down the throat of Bent Tree Lane together, a pair of pills swallowed by the darkness of this night. And don’t look back, it’s everyone’s worst mistake.
Maybe the point of living isn’t finding who you are.
It’s outrunning who you were.
“Are they dead? Did I kill them? Why can’t I remember?”
Don’t think, just run. Until our only company is the pale moon and the crickets, don’t stop running.
Isn’t it always the most beautiful things in nature that can kill you? The prettiest of frogs are the most poisonous. Or the snakes dressed in scaly sheaths of breathtaking neon the color of Nerf guns, venom loaded into their fangs like liquid bullets.
Or a set of pale pink lips at your neck.
The next thing, Tristan is peeling Kyle’s bloody clothes off behind a 7-Eleven next to a dumpster and a stack of splintering pallets. Odor of putrefied Dr. Pepper, grease. An empty bag of Fritos, crushed Dasani water bottle, a bloody Band-Aid. You’ll need a new name, says Tristan as he strips him, the streaks of red across his porcelain face like roadmaps. Kyle Amos is dead, Kyle and everything he suffered. I will protect you, now and always, just like I promised the other day when you fought with your teammates.
Kyle barely remembers the falling out. “I don’t feel right. I need to go back home. I have to see if—”
That isn’t your home anymore. I’m your home.
“I-I’m bleeding everywhere.”
It’s not your blood.
“My mom …” chokes Kyle again, his mind drawn back to the house, to the scene they left behind. “Dad … K-Kaleb …”
Are you listening to me? You will never be hurt again.
Nothing you hated can touch you anymore.
You can be whatever you want now.
We can be gods.
By the way, what do you think of the name “Henry”?
Tristan is always the one saying things. Kyle only listens, watching his own life fall apart like a drama on TV, only it feels like someone else’s life, someone else’s drama.
“I feel sick …”
In time, everything’s a memory, and then even memories die. Tristan takes off his own bloodied clothes, carelessly pitches them at the dumpster with a sigh. Now answer me this: will the Macy’s by the shopping mall suffice, or do you prefer Kohl’s?
Suddenly Kyle is following Tristan through the darkness of a closed department store in his underwear, no idea which one they broke into. He can’t keep up as Tristan combs the racks for shirts, for pants, for a whole new person on clearance.
It’s like an invisible leash, from Tristan’s fist to Kyle’s neck.
Wherever Tristan wants Kyle to walk, he walks. If he wants him to jump, to look somewhere, even to take a breath, by Tristan’s unspoken command, Kyle somehow complies.