Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 109882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“Excuse me?”
She glanced over at me but quickly looked away and kept walking.
“Excuse me? I’m looking for someone.”
“If you’re smart, a pretty girl like you would get the fuck out of here.” She glanced at me once more, a black eye now visible under the washed-out streetlamp.
I rolled up the window, making sure the doors were locked. There was one second where panic settled deep in me. My throat closed up, and my heart started to make this warlike tempo in my chest, the pain strangulating.
I closed my eyes, gripped the steering wheel, and tried to breathe through the fear. When I opened my eyes, I was exactly where I had been five seconds ago.
There was a flash of headlights, and I glanced in my rearview mirror, seeing a shiny dark SUV pull up behind me. That panic grew tenfold. It was probably nothing, or maybe it was something. Didn’t know, but what I did know without a doubt was that if I didn’t figure out what in the hell I was going to do, I’d be dead.
Chapter 7
My mind was filled with white noise, this static that consumed me. I stared down at the empty coffee cup, the insulated Styrofoam fragile in my hand. Before I knew what I was doing, I had it crushed in my palm, my fingers digging into the slightly raised exterior.
“Excuse me?”
I lifted my head, feeling like there was this rush of waves around me, filling my ears, making noise muted, blurred. The lady in front of me had this confused look on her face, or maybe it was fear. She looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
“Are you going to make my coffee?”
I swallowed, my hands shaking. Why the hell was I even at work?
“Take fifteen,” Cambria said, pushing me toward the back.
I blinked, my vision blurry. I was crying.
I found myself walking into the room, stopping, standing there, looking around but not taking anything in. I felt lost, so lost my mind was a jumble of images and words, sounds of what happened around me. But just as promptly I turned and went out of the back room and right to a table.
I sat in one of the empty booths, wanting to leave, to get away from all of this, from everything, but I needed the money.
God, I could have laughed at that fact. I had a shitload of money back at my apartment, but still I was broke, wondering how I would survive.
I scrubbed my hand over my face, over my hair, wanting to rip the strands out. At least the pain would have given me something else to focus on. The flat screen that hung in the corner showed the news. That’s all that was on, every day, all day. I stared at the muted screen, the news anchor saying something, but the volume was so low I couldn’t hear anything. I watched her mouth move, stared at her perfectly placed and made-up face, and wanted to scream. I was frustrated, my mind and body feeling like it was wrapped around itself, like it was this tangled mess inside of me with no hope of becoming right again.
And then the screen switched to a neighborhood, one I recognized because I’d just been there the other day. I sat up straighter, staring at the shitty complex where Marshall lived. The apartment building was the focal point, and the people standing around were more interested in the fact that a camera was there than the body that was being wheeled out on a stretcher. I obviously couldn’t see who they were taking away, but I didn’t need to see to know it was Marshall. The image of him flashed on the screen. The news anchor was back on, the little square to the upper-right side of her showing the guy I didn’t really know, but who I felt responsible for at this moment.
He looked lost in the picture, his eyes red-rimmed, his face ashen. His death had to be something vicious, something truly newsworthy if they were taking time to report on it. Hell, his neighborhood probably had a high violence and death rate, so whatever had happened to Marshall had to be pretty bad for them to give it the time of day.
I’d killed him. He’d told me about Ricky, tried to help me, and because I’d opened my mouth, his death was on my hands. I found myself standing, went over to where the TV was mounted, and craned my neck back. I stared at the picture of him, everything moving in slow motion, the world around me spinning, then promptly speeding up.
I don’t know what made me look out the window, but before I knew what I was doing, I stared out at the passing world before me. The only thing separating me from it was glass and steel. There, sitting like an idling devil, or maybe the Grim Reaper, was a black SUV. The black SUV I’d seen at Marshall’s place.