Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
I want to tell her I’m sorry, but there shouldn’t be anything to apologize for.
I should be able to have my damn friend over to watch movies and have dinner with me. There should be no conflict about her returning home after having spent some time doing something for herself instead of serving these ungrateful assholes.
I know Jackie is technically Hannah’s guardian, but only for one more month.
I want so badly to help her, but she won’t let me.
Powerlessness is perhaps my least favorite feeling in the entire spectrum of human emotion.
It’s all I feel as I watch Hannah climb out of my car and walk up to her door.
Restlessness moves through my veins like a livewire as I sit here watching the house. I know it’s probably pointless, but I want to linger here for a minute just to make sure Hannah doesn’t need any help.
It’s probably my anger that makes me do it.
The powerlessness that I can’t stand.
I’m not powerless. I’ve never been powerless. I’m Parker Johansson, and I can move objects out of my way with nothing more than the power of my mind.
I wish that were true.
It doesn’t feel true right now.
So, I use my fingers.
I’ve always had a temper. It’s not my finest feature. Usually, I control it pretty well, but nothing triggers me like the possibility of someone I love getting hurt.
I don’t follow Aubrey because I’ve never met her, and if I’m being honest with myself, maybe I have developed a slight aversion to the girl based on all the trouble she has caused my best friend. I know that may not be fair, though. That horrible, uncomfortable feeling I get not being able to protect Hannah from Anae? She probably gets the same one from not being able to protect Aubrey from Dare.
I just don’t care about Aubrey, so I try to ignore that.
I care about Hannah and her well-being.
Someone needs to protect her, and I’m all she’s got.
That’s why I use Aubrey’s profile to find Dare’s, and then I click the message button.
“You don’t know me, but I know you,” I type out. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with Anae and, frankly, I don’t care. But leave Hannah out of it. Leave her alone. Block HER if you didn’t invite her into this on purpose. Whatever sick game you’re playing with the girls in your life, just leave her out of it. She has enough problems without you making everything worse for her.”
Normally, I would read and reread a message like this, tweaking words and moving commas to make sure it’s perfect before I send it, but the rational part of me knows the longer I have to think about this, the greater chance I’ll never send it.
Maybe that’s the right call, but it feels too much like doing nothing, and I’ve had my fill of that tonight.
Deep down, I don’t even expect Dare to read this message. We aren’t friends, so it will go in a separate request folder that he probably doesn’t even check. As unfortunate as it is, while he has a black soul and no heart to speak of, he is tragically nice to look at. Consequently, no matter how evil or taken he may be, I’m sure a few hopeful strays wind up in the message request section of his inbox, and since he has never met me, he has no reason to fish me out of it.
Which is why I’m surprised when, a moment later, he responds.
“Of course I know you, Parker. I saw your picture on Hannah’s dresser when I visited her bedroom. Well, her former bedroom.”
My face heats to about a thousand degrees at the satisfaction I feel coming off the flat line of text. I remember Hannah saying she was moved out of her room because she “displeased the king,” and Dare was Anae’s evil king, wasn’t he?
“Hannah is the sweetest, kindest person in the whole world,” I type back furiously. “The fact that you have a problem with her says more about you than her.”
“How is lovely little Hannah? Sounds like she’s having a bad night. What a shame.”
This smug bastard. I hate him so much.
My stomach feels sick and alarm bells start going off. As angry as I am, something else is warning me to pull back. It’s Anae and Hannah’s words about how meticulous Dare is. How he never does anything by accident or without a purpose.
Would that include messaging me?
I wanted to yell at him and tell him to fuck off and leave my friend alone, but in doing that, perhaps I’m only feeding him more information.
And lovely little Hannah, what the fuck is that?
I think about Anae’s rabidness this morning and lick my suddenly dry lips. She would lop off someone’s head in anger if she saw Dare refer to Hannah that way—probably Hannah’s, even though she hadn’t done a damn thing to poke the bear.