Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Every time I glance across at Felix – especially as I see the way his silver hair catches the moonlight – a warble moves through me. It shivers in my belly as though my core is yelling at me, telling me to forget all this madness and leap at him.
Make our future happen now, and don’t think about the rest, the implications.
The reasons it can’t work.
“It’s a beautiful tattoo, by the way,” Felix says. “I had to study it closely to make sure you were the right one.”
The right one meaning the one he was supposed to kill, without remorse, without guilt, just take me out.
Like in the car with Felix and me, I’m able to take his comment to one level while ignoring everything else that’s happening. It’s like my heart, soul, and need know these moments are important to us, even if we ought to be worried about the far bigger deal of not dying.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “I got it in memory of my dad. Not that I remember him, but….”
We pause at the edge of my yard. Looking at the house, I know Julie’s still up. The light to her bedroom – formerly the guest room – is on. The lamp in the living room is also turned on, so maybe mom’s home too.
“You don’t need to remember him to keep his memory alive,” he says.
I take his hand, not even planning to, just reach over and grab it firmly. He squeezes it in response, holding me with surprising gentleness…and yet with strength beneath it.
I remind myself that he doesn’t want the same thing I want.
He isn’t thinking about a sun-drenched backyard and little kids running here and there, maybe spattered with paint from the art session we’re having.
I see a giant canvas covered in little footprints and handprints, every color of the rainbow shining our happy family life back up at us.
“Thanks for saying that,” I murmur after a pause.
He brings my hand up, guiding it to his lips, and then kisses it tenderly. The warmth lingers, shivering down over my arm, coiling around my wrist like some kind of phantom sign, one step down from a real wedding ring.
Our eyes meet, and for a moment, I know he’s going to do it. He’s going to start telling me intense, captivating things.
He said he’s never just kissed anybody like he kissed me…and doing it when he was supposed to kill me, surely that’s a sign.
Surely it means something.
“Hello?” I turn at mom’s voice. She’s looking up at Felix, eyes narrowed, probably wondering what this giant is doing on her doorstep.
Then she spots me, closely looking as though I’m going to disappear.
“Freya?” she says, voice rising. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Of course, mom isn’t going to automatically assume Felix is my boyfriend or that anything romantic is happening here. Still, when I read the anxious note in her voice, it hammers it home.
She thinks I’m in trouble, probably assuming Felix is some kind of law enforcement.
“We need to talk inside,” Felix says, his voice low but firm as he glances over his shoulder, looking for them, whoever they are.
“Mom, I’m sorry, but we need to come in. Now.”
Mom and Julie sit on the couch, close but not touching.
Julie came downstairs soon after we came in here, wearing a baggy T-shirt that made her look thinner. She’s tied her hair up, and her eyes are red and puffy, as though she’s been crying.
I tried to take her aside when she came down to ask what she meant on the phone.
But the second she saw Felix, she just said, “Later.”
In a quick burst, almost angry, though Julie rarely gets angry at me.
Now she sits beside mom, processing what Felix is telling them. Felix talks quickly, giving them the same basic facts he gave me, but much quicker.
“So you were hired to kill my daughter,” Mom says once Felix is done, slowly speaking as if she needs time to compute it.
Felix looks at her steadily. He looms over us all, but he doesn’t use his bulk as a tool the same way some guys did in high school. He simply is huge.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve got no way of knowing if they’re coming here, but we can’t risk it. We have to go.”
Mom sighs, looking at me, then at Julie.
“It’s been quite a while since you two pulled an old-fashioned practical joke, hasn’t it?” she says. “And there I was, thinking I’d be able to drift off into a nice peaceful sleep.”
Julie stares at the floor, her arms crossed, making me think of how she used to be…and making me hate myself for thinking that.
“It’s not a joke,” I say.
“How do you know?” Mom asks.
It felt real when he kissed me.
Since that would make completely no sense, I swallow it down.