Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“An axe?” he asked in a dangerous calm.
I licked my lips. “Yeah.”
“Is Keene with him?” he asked me.
I nodded. “You’re okay?”
I nodded again.
“I’ll be right back,” he said in a deadly quiet voice.
I tugged on his shirtsleeve and did what I did best. Exaggerated.
“We need to go to the hospital to get me checked out, then I need to find the closest police officer willing to take my statement,” I said.
He took a deep, clarifying breath, then blew it out.
Then he gathered me up in his arms and held me to his body until the cops arrived.
I gave my statement, telling them everything. While Keene sat on one side of me listening, my sisters stood at my back, Coffey’s old team stood at theirs, and then Coffey sat at my other side, holding my two hands in makeshift bandages in his hands.
“And Bright admitted to you that he killed your mother?” The detective looked skeptical.
I would be, too, had I been hearing this insane story.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“I heard that as well,” Melinda confirmed at my side. “In between crashing and banging. The man was yelling at the top of his lungs, so there’s no way that I couldn’t hear.”
“And why didn’t you go in?” The detective eyed her up and down.
Melinda didn’t rise to the bait.
“Because I was holding a toddler, and I knew that she would never forgive me if I put that toddler down to be used as cannon fodder, or bring him with me to possibly be hurt,” Melinda explained, not quite rudely, but close.
“Well,” the detective sighed. “This just sounds really far-fetched. He admitted a lot of stuff to you that implicates him greatly. That’s two actual murders and one attempted murder.”
“I wish it was just a story I made up,” I murmured. “That night my mother was murdered…” I swallowed hard. “I walked into the Fun House because that was our thing. We’d go in there and hide from each other. I went in there that night and there she was, on the ground, dead. Meanwhile, I was too stunned to scream. I sat down on the floor and looked up, and I could see her dead eyes from eight other angles. It’s something that haunts my dreams, even right now.”
The detective blew out his breath. “Walk me through everything that happened one more time, please.”
So I did.
Then I was taken to the hospital.
It was there that we got the second biggest shock of the night.
“Can you get her checked over…internally?” Coffey requested once the doctor made his appearance. “She was two months pregnant when we went to the hospital last week.”
“Of course, of course,” he said. “We’ll get an ultrasound in here ASAP. In the meantime, we’ll only treat you with drugs that are healthy for a pregnant woman. Thank you for informing us.”
Coffey’s brows rose. “You act like some don’t.”
“Some don’t,” he confirmed. “It’s like they don’t think of it or something.”
I shook my head at that.
That was something I couldn’t fathom. If Coffey hadn’t said something, I certainly would have.
“Well, then…” He shrugged. “Glad I did.”
That surprise came in the form of having an ultrasound done ten minutes later and the doctor announcing that my “twins looked great.”
“What did you say?” Coffey asked, sounding choked.
“Your twins look great, see?” He pointed at the screen. “Identical. They share the same sac. Twin A, right here. Twin B, right there.”
Coffey looked at me, then pulled his ultrasound out of his pocket before saying, “That’s not what the other chick said.”
The doctor looked over at the picture, then pointed at it. “That baby has three arms. Most likely, one was hiding behind the other. See?”
Coffey’s face flushed. “I just thought…”
“That’s not his dick, Coffey!” I cried out, laughter bubbling out of my throat.
“I mean…I just thought, okay!” He looked bashful. “I mean…I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but what the fuck else would it be?”
That’s when I rolled over and died laughing, despite the headache that had never fully formed.
It was worth it, though.
That laugh meant everything in that moment in time.
More than he knew, that was for sure.
CHAPTER 21
Keep your whorehole shut, you skankaroni swamp donkey.
-Simi to Caristonia
SIMI
I woke up in the most delicious way.
For the first time in a week, I’d gotten to sleep in.
The RV Coffey purchased was perfect. Talking to him for hours about what our lives would look like now was perfect. Going to bed in Coffey’s arms was perfect.
I’d had absolutely no idea what “perfect” looked like until Coffey came along.
Then he wakes me up like he did today.
I writhed on the bed as his tongue did a figure eight around my clit and my entrance. Not quite touching, but definitely stringing me along with his almost touches to the good part.
“Coffey,” I breathed. “What are you doing?”