Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Until one day, I went to the restroom for two minutes at the mall, and when I came out, she was gone. All of her stuff was left lying there, but it was scattered everywhere. I freaked out immediately, knowing what he had done to her while they were together. I knew it was him that took her.
I mean, who else could it have been?
I called the cops, but they couldn’t start a search for thirty-six hours. Well, guess what? Here we were, sixteen hours later, and Lacie was laying on her death bed, not breathing, not moving, not talking.
Dead.
I hated him. I hated him with every fiber of my being for doing this to her. I hated him for ripping her from me.
I hated him for proving yet again that no one would ever stay.
2
I sat on the balcony of my apartment, listening to the horns blow and tires screech on the asphalt below me. Sirens reached my ears, but the sounds were so normal to me that I barely noticed them anymore.
Three days had passed since I had buried my best friend, since I had watched her get lowered into the ground, never to be seen again.
I sighed when my doorbell rang, cursing whatever asshole decided to disturb me. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone. I wanted to be left alone to wallow in my misery, to question the universe about why this shit kept happening.
Maybe I was just always destined to be a walking tragedy.
When I slung open my front door, I wanted to slam it back shut again. Drake Rollins—Lacie’s ex-boyfriend—was standing on the other side of my door.
He looked rough. His lip was split open, and his eye was beginning to swell. I hated that I could still find him even the slightest bit attractive after what he had done to my best friend, and I was angry that I didn’t have something on me to make him feel the same pain she had before she had died.
Her death was all his fault.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snarled at him as I clenched the door frame in my hand.
He ran a hand down his face, blowing out a harsh breath. “Lacie—do you know where she is? Have you heard from her?” he asked, his voice filled with worry.
Was he fucking serious right now? He was really trying to play this card like he wasn’t guilty as sin for her death?
I wasn’t stupid, and I sure as fuck wasn’t naïve anymore.
“What?!” I screeched at him. He frowned at me, but I was so fucking angry—so furious. “You have the audacity to stand here and ask me that after what the fuck you did to her?” I snarled. “Do not stand in front of me and try to claim to be the innocent one.”
He looked as if I had slapped him. “Do what?” he demanded. He stepped towards me threateningly, his fists clenched at his sides as his breathing picked up slightly from his anger. My muscles instantly tensed, sensing a threat from him. “What the fuck do you mean something happened to her?” he snarled as he crowded my space.
I stumbled backward, panic clawing at my throat. My heart pounded erratically in my chest, and I felt like throwing up and passing out at the same time.
Drake Rollins was fucking intimidating when he wanted to be.
He cursed and stopped moving forward, linking his hands together behind his head as he glared up at my ceiling. “I’m not going to hurt you, Hayles,” he said, using the old nickname he used to have for me. I didn’t want him to call me that—not after what he had done to her. “Breathe and calm down. I need to know what happened to Lacie.”
I didn’t know what game he was playing at, and it was making me all the more nervous to have him in my apartment.
I turned away from him, cursing myself for still feeling so shaken years after leaving the one man who had instilled so much fear in me. The dumbest things made me panic, and apparently so did Drake Rollins.
Damien may have loved me, but he always had a fucked-up way of showing it.
I grabbed a bottle of water out of my pantry and untwisted the cap, downing the bottle in one go. I tossed it into the trash can once I was done and turned to face Drake who was looking at a picture of me and Lacie on my wall near my front door.
“I tried to protect her,” Drake admitted softly when he realized he had my attention again. “I really did. Lacie got caught up in the wrong shit—did it behind my back until I finally realized that she was doing it without me knowing. Cocaine, meth—fucking hell, even heroin,” he grumbled. My eyes widened in shock. I had figured as much, but she had never been open about what she was doing. I just tried to support her the best that I could.