Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Jeremy throws up his hands when Layna slaps down the final card with a triumphant laugh, winning their game. Kyle wonders if they consider themselves “boring, normal people”. If anyone in this bar sees themselves as boring or normal. If, when described with such words, anyone else would feel as much joy as Kyle would, as much relief, clinging to those terrible words.
“You haven’t looked me up yet, have you,” says Kyle, hands busy cleaning a glass, “the real me … how I allegedly died.”
Cade is struck by that notion. “Why the heck would I?”
“Because then you’d read a story about a mother, a father, and their two sons who died in a freak fire in the 90s.” Kyle sets the glass aside, reaches for another, while Cade stares at him with her lips parted. “And yes,” he adds, “I am curious about others like me. Very. Just as you are about where your visions come from. They definitely are coming from somewhere.” He sets the glass aside with the rag, lets out a sigh. “The trouble is, do we really wanna know the truth about what we are? Do we really wanna know where it all comes from? … or where it’s all headed …?”
“Are you about to do something crazy?”
Kyle’s eyes snap to hers, caught off-guard. “What?”
“Did you discover … more … like you?” She comes closer. “Is that why you’re saying all of this? Are you about to go and do something super fucking crazy?”
Kyle drops his gaze to the counter, stunned.
Cade takes his hand at once. “Listen. I know, all of that shit I just said about my visions being bullshit, and then you dropping that bomb on me about your family and the fire, but you should really be careful.” She comes even closer to him, whispering now. “I had another vision. A pale face, long body, long black hair, like a real fucking Dracula type …”
The words turn Kyle’s heart into a pounding drum.
“He wasn’t alone. ‘Dracula’ had some freaky friends. One of them looked like a normal person, but some … not so much. And they couldn’t see me … but I saw them. And I felt cold. And I couldn’t see well because it was all dark … all the sounds were echoing around me, hurting my ears … and then I saw you.”
The drum in his chest continues to pound and pound. Do vampire hearts race like this, too? Or will Kyle’s someday stop?
“You were standing in front of a deep, dark hole. You were scared. In danger. But then you jumped in.”
Jeremy and Layna let out another burst of laughter, now at the jukebox. Kyle is only distracted for a second, glancing their way, before wincing in discomfort. The telling of Cade’s story is twisted worse by her own emotional account of it, both her words and her feelings stabbing Kyle like a cold, evil blade.
“If any of this means anything, if it someday comes to mean anything, I just want you to know. I want to be useful. I want to be helpful, especially if … if you really are planning to …” Her hands are warm as she holds his. “… to do something nuts.”
“Thanks,” Kyle chokes out, his lungs squeezed.
“Be careful. I mean it.” She closes her eyes and squeezes his hands tightly, then whispers, “May your burdens prove smaller than they feel, your path prove clearer than it seems, your soul be strong, bones be sturdy, and heart be willing to see beauty in things big, tall, tiny and small, and nothing at all.”
Cade’s special words, something her gran always said, like a ritual to wish someone well. Kyle finds an unexpected sense of comfort in hearing them, even if some part of him feels utterly incapable of being saved or protected right now.
Not until he deals with the issue head-on.
Not until …
Kyle walks into his house to find Elias asleep prematurely on the couch, perhaps having tried (and failed) to stay up late for Kyle to come home.
But Elias isn’t snoring. His breaths are sharp and jagged, and from his body, Kyle feels only fear.
Elias is having a nightmare.
“Elias,” murmurs Kyle as gently as he can. He draws to the couch, crouches down, puts a hand on Elias’s back.
Elias jerks away with a gasp, eyes flapping open, cold sweat dressing his forehead, sweat soaking through his tank top. His wild eyes find Kyle’s through the semidarkness, with just a dull light that was left on spilling in from the kitchen. “It’s okay,” says Kyle, “it’s just me, you’re okay.” It takes Elias a moment to realize he’s awake, to trust Kyle’s words. Then he changes his demeanor at once, face softening. “Was the craziest thing,” says Elias, trying to laugh off the nightmare, “had this dream where I was stuck gambling at this stupid penny slot, and then it came alive and started spitting tokens at me, except the tokens were, like, bees or something—I swear I’m not high—and then …”