Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
We’re given one flashlight and an AirTag. The tracker is in the event they don’t hear from us by eight a.m.
“Don’t kill each other,” Ian says before they all climb into their vehicles. Tires kick up dirt as they peel out onto the main road. Headlights swerve away, and I’m left in the pitch-black, freezing cold with Chris O’Malley.
He switches on the flashlight, and I’m assuming the contempt across his face matches the same look on mine.
And then I chuck the AirTag as far as I can throw it. It goes flying over the tall weeds of the field.
“What the…what’s wrong with you?!” O’Malley gapes.
“I don’t wanna be found,” I say heatedly. “Fuck you and fuck the other Chris.” Novak is his best friend on the team. “And fuck the rest of Epsilon.”
He has to chase after me as I set the hot, furious pace. My lengthy stride warms my body, but the second I see O’Malley beside me, I only think about pushing him in the ditch.
“You think we’re happy you’re here?” O’Malley snaps back.
“Why would I ever think that?” I retort. “You’ve all made it more than clear you think I’m a garbage bodyguard and a garbage human—when I’ve never made any mistake in security to warrant that.” I walk faster, hoping he’ll slow down.
He doesn’t.
O’Malley stays at my side and illuminates the deserted road ahead of us. Farmland on the right and left. “You’re famous. People know who you are, and that’s only gonna escalate the longer you and Luna are together. It makes this job more complicated, so yeah, we don’t want you here. Omega is the one in the news and on magazine covers. It makes no fucking sense for you to be Epsilon.”
“Something we agree on,” I mutter. I wish I asked Cruz Jr. for a smoke before he left.
We walk on the dirt. Hurts less than the loose gravel.
Silence falls for about five blissful minutes, and we focus on staying warm. I blow in my cupped hands. He’s shivering and muttering curses. I’m hoping the nearest gas station isn’t more than four miles out, but who knows. With my luck, it’s probably a hundred miles to sanctuary.
“That must’ve been some car ride with the Wreath brothers,” O’Malley says. Can’t see his face all too well in the dark, but I assume he’s glaring. “What’d you do, blow them?”
“Yeah,” I say tightly. “I gave them world-class BJs.”
“You did get paid doing it.”
“You have a funny way of asking for a fist in your face.” I try to see his expression, but the light is only hitting the road, not our features. His obsession with me and sex is just odd at this point. He always finds a way to bring up my past turning tricks, and there’ve been a couple times that I’ve thought he’s into me.
Like sexually.
Is this just a hate-the-person-you-wanna-fuck situation? I dunno.
I try to outpace him. He won’t let me. I sigh out an aggressive breath, “I’m not quitting. Whatever you and SFE throw at me, it won’t get me to quit.”
O’Malley lets out a pained laugh. “Yeah, we know. There is nothing we could do to you, outside of killing you, and none of us hate you enough to go to prison.”
“Aw thanks,” I murmur.
O’Malley sighs now. “Really, what’d you tell Ian? Because before tonight, he was supposed to—”
“Be a prick? Haze me further? What’d you have? Silly string? Honey? You want the bears to eat me?”
“Jesus Christ,” O’Malley groans. “You’re like a fucking jack-in-the-box.”
“I dunno, you look like the bigger clown to me.”
He sighs again. I wish he’d stop sighing. Everything he does is nails scraping down a chalkboard right now. “He was supposed to make it harder for you.”
“Trust me, he did.” I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck with O’Malley in this situation.
In the next ten minutes of silence, he glances over at me more than once.
“You wanna say something?” I finally snap. “Or are you just checking me out? ‘Cause we’ve been over this, I’m straight—”
“But you’ve blown how many guys before?” O’Malley slings back.
I glare. “Why so interested? You asking for one?”
His laugh sounds more brittle, and I see his cloud of breath in the dark. “I’m not hitting on you, Paul. I would never hit on you, trust me.”
We’ve both said that phrase.
Trust me.
Seems impossible.
“Alright, Chris.” I stare back at the never-ending road. “If you’re not secretly in love with me—”
“Insane—”
“—then you must be jealous.”
He laughs for real now, like that’s ridiculous. “Jealous? Of you?”
“I never thought it till recently,” I admit. Why would he ever want to put himself in my shoes? He has the better parents. The better family. The better life. Right? Except now maybe I have something he does want.
It sears every muscle in my body, but I say it, “You wanna be with Luna.”