Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
“Y-yes.” I turned my view to the left.
There, Lunita danced.
It was a mirror image of me, but not me too. Her white sundress glimmered and flowed around her body.
Black and red flowers decorated her head.
Around Lunita, tons and tons of candles flickered, casting a warm, golden glow over her body. Her movements were an oddly mesmerizing blend of chaos and grace. She arched her back and did this maddening twirl.
Weird, yet beautiful.
Wrong, but also right.
Petals fluttered with every sudden turn, every abrupt halt that punctuated her eerie performance. Their colors were vivid splashes against the night, alive in the ghostly luminescence that bathed her.
With her hands out to her sides, she kicked one foot up and then began leaping around. There was a deliberate, almost ritualistic quality to those steps.
I almost let myself get lost in the sight, but the wounds from Olga’s death were still in my heart, scarred and bleeding.
“After what you did, you’re dancing?” I kept the knife at my side.
Anger rose in my chest.
Lightning struck the dark sky.
Lunita stopped dancing and gazed at it.
The little girl stopped skipping and sat down on the ground, watching the both of us.
Then, Lunita noticed me. Her expression changed from one of peacefulness to something darker, more menacing.
She leaned her head all the way down to her shoulder like a crazy person. “Little girl, is that an illusion? Did you put her there?”
“No, ma’am.” The little girl propped the stuffed lion next to her. “She’s back and came through the front door this time.”
Lunita frowned. “Bet she’s come to kill us. Stupid. Stupid.”
The little girl turned to me.
“Let’s see.” I placed the knife in front. “Come here, Lunita.”
She watched me, that white gown rippling in the cool breeze. “You needed me to save the day. I did. I just didn’t know it wasn’t a real threat. That’s your fault.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
She let out a long sigh. “You pulled me up—”
“Oh fuck you! I didn’t pull you up to fuck the gardener!” I took steps forward, needing to be close enough to grab that bitch by her hair or arms. “You wanted to ruin our life!”
“You were scared!
“No, I wasn’t!”
“You were! That’s why I came—”
“You fucked the gardener—”
“That part’s different. I wanted to smell the flowers with my nose. and he put flowers in my hair.” She touched her head. “And. . .and anyway I respected you—”
“The fuck you did—”
“I only did it in the butt!”
The little girl gasped and covered the lion’s ears.
“What more did you want?” Lunita pouted.
“I fucking want you to stay up here on this roof and stay the fuck out of my life.”
“Hog. Hog. Hog. All the time.”
“What?” I glanced at the little girl. “What the hell is she saying.”
The little girl kept her hands over the lion’s ears. “She thinks you hog the body.”
“It’s my fucking body.” I pointed to Lunita. “Get your own fucking body!”
Studying me, Lunita kneeled, placed her hands on her knees, and then leaned over. “Something is not right with you.”
“You’re one to talk.”
Still kneeling, she looked at the ground. “Anyway. he k-killed my Flower Man. Mean old lion. You couldn’t save him.”
My heart ached, but I shoved that empathy away. “Kaz would never share us.”
She lifted her view to me and went back to a standing position. “I’m not his.”
“That’s something we agree on. However, for these remaining days, stay out of my fucking body and life—”
“It is not your body!” She screamed and began jumping up and down. “It’s not! It’s not! It’s not!”
“No! No!” Now, the little girl clapped her hands over her ears as her eyes widened with fear. “Please, stop! I don’t like this part.”
Lunita went still and glared at me. “Get us out of New Orleans.”
“Why? Scared that your time is up?”
Lunita gazed at the knife in my hand and rolled her eyes. “You can’t kill me.”
“I think you are a figment of my goddamn imagination, so yes I can kill you.”
Lunita laughed. “We all thought that in the beginning. You’re just late.”
“I’m not. . .” I tensed. “I’m not late.”
“You just found out.” She raised a fist in the air. “I am real.”
“You’re not.”
“I have feelings. I have desires.” She kicked the ground in frustration, sending a flurry of petals into the air. “I am a woman. I am a superhero. This is my story.”
The little girl giggled.
I blinked.
Lunita gave me this strange smile that chilled me to my bones. Her lips curled upwards into this unsettling curve. She bared her teeth like a predator about to pounce. “I am you, stupid.”
I put the knife between us. “But which of us came first?”
Lunita quirked her brows. “Why would that matter?”
“Do you know?”
“I came before you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“No.” She pouted.
“Then, you could be wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter who came first.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t because she came before the both of us.” Lunita pointed to the little girl.