Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Lou came over to where he stood to gather more pieces. He stepped to the side, but kept his gaze on Troy. “Yes. Just a little bad news, but I plan to handle this quickly.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Benny stormed off and then stopped walking after a few feet. “Let’s keep communication to a minimum today, everyone.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, but he continued to stomp off to his room. “Benny?”
“It means no calling anyone.” Troy shoveled eggs into his mouth. Earlier, he’d held a serious expression. Now, he wore a grin as he ate.
I leaned his way. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No, but I bet you a million dollars it’s about Chase.”
“You don’t have a million dollars.”
“I will once they finish killing each other.” Troy crunched on the bacon. “I’m sure one of them has me in their will.”
I ignored the stupid statement. “How were you able to call people before?”
“I didn’t.”
I checked to make sure Benny was gone and lowered my voice. “Then why—”
“Why what?” Troy glared at me.
“Yesterday, you said—”
“Does it matter? Today is today.” He winked at me. “I don’t have a way to call anyone, Jazz. And all I can tell you is that you shouldn’t call anyone either. Especially not Rich Boy.”
I whispered, hoping the lowered voice would get him to tell me the truth, “But—”
“Let it go, before you get your lover killed.”
“I wasn’t even going there.”
“Yes, you were.”
“I just wanted to know how—”
“Let it go.”
“Fine.” I slumped in my chair, unable to eat anymore, and turned to Vivian whose granola had shifted into a sludgy gray liquid. “Did you bring some ganja?”
She mumbled, “What?”
“Weed? Do you have weed? Marijuana. Sticky icky—”
“Stop, Jazz. Half of those terms aren’t even used.” Troy held his hand in front of him. “You’re too young to be out of style with slang.”
“Whatever. Vivian, do you have some?”
“Yes,” Vivian said. “I’m in a decaying mansion against my will, of course I have a bag.”
“The money, too!?” Shouting came from down the hallway as Benny must’ve yelled into his phone.
I backed up from the table and couldn’t even look at the bun again. “Give me some. I’m going to need to be as high as hell today, just to get through it.”
Troy grabbed my arm. “Naw, man. We’re with a psychopath. You sure you want to be high right now?”
“Sociopath,” I corrected. “And the only thing that I’m sure of, is that something fucked up is going to happen to all of us.”
He squeezed my arm. “Don’t think that way, Jazz. As soon as you believe you’re defeated, you’ll be defeated. Shit is going to work out like it always does. And he’s a psychopath, not a sociopath.”
Vivian set her spoon next to her bowl, her gaze stuck on the small movement as if she had to focus on one second at a time, so she wouldn’t lose her mind.
I turned back to Troy. “Sociopath.”
“Psychopath.” He picked up another piece of bacon. “Both are dangerous. I don’t know why you even care which one it is.”
“Because I get sociopaths. I’ve lived with them. They’re easier to survive.”
Troy gave a sad nod, surely remembering our brothers and Mom, and the tragic household that scarred and sliced through most of our childhood. “Benny isn’t our brothers, Jazz. His head is fucked up.”
Vivian slumped in her chair and bit her bottom lip. Water glazed over her eyes. Small rippling pools of blue that more sparkled than showed her grief. In anything she did, she looked beautiful. Even as she trembled in fear, I found her breathtaking. The urge to grab her hit me hard, but I couldn’t move. I was stone. Hard. With each second, I bricked in my emotions. My fears.
Rock up.
Troy whispered, “We’re going to survive.”
“Because?” I asked.
“Because we always do.” He grabbed his biscuit and sopped up the butter and cheese that had melted together in a swirl of yummy goo. “We know what the solution is. Either Chase will do it, or we will.”
Vivian parted her lips. “I can’t.”
Troy continued to eat and kept his gaze on me.
“Sociopath,” I whispered.
“Really, Jazz?”
“Yes, really. Sociopaths are easily agitated, volatile, and always display emotional outbursts. They don’t have any regard to society’s rules. No guilt or remorse—”
Troy waved me away. “Psychopaths don’t regard rules or have guilt and remorse either.”
“Yes, but sociopaths can form emotional attachments. Psychopaths can’t.”
“Who’s Benny attached to?” Troy rolled his eyes. “We’re locked into his chest, Jazz. And he won’t let us out. This isn’t love.”
“I didn’t say love. I said emotional attachment. Benny cares about us.”
“Are you fucking crazy? He’s trying to kill a man that you love. He’s—”
“Benny won’t kill him.” I shook my head. I had to make that clear. “He promised.”
“Psychopaths lie. He’s going to go after Chase. You just can’t deal with it. Rock up.”