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)
I hear her screams. Her cries. Her pleas. “DON’T HURT HER, PLEASE! PLEASE!”
The entire night rushes through me like firecrackers, popping in quick succession. It’s not all chronological, and I struggle to piece it together, so I focus harder like if I stop trying to remember it’ll all slip away forever.
“STAY IN THE CAR!—Luna!”
I startle and blink from the harsh bathroom lights. Donnelly’s hands cup my cheeks. “Luna,” he says, searching my eyes like he’s trying to find me.
“Donnelly?!” Farrow calls.
“She’s in here!” Donnelly yells.
Huh. I’m still sitting on the bathroom counter. Alien bathrobe on. I must have zoned out in my head. Farrow rushes in and says to someone behind him, “Just stay back there.”
“If she’s decent, I’m coming in.” My brother.
Farrow must make an executive decision because he shuts the door behind him and keeps Moffy out. I slip my gaze to the floor, trying to go back to the memory. “Wait,” I tell them. “I want…to remember.” Please don’t let it fade.
“Luna,” Donnelly says, lifting my chin. His gaze meets mine in panicked urgency. “I know you want to remember. But whatever this memory is, it’s giving you a panic attack.”
Farrow’s wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm.
I just now realize how heavily I’m breathing. Deep labored breaths like I can’t seem to fill my lungs with air. Blinking a couple times, I tell Donnelly between breaths, “You…told me…to stay…in the…car.”
He blows back. His eyes become haunted, and he’s shaking his head over and over. And I know, I know this is the last thing he wanted me to remember. He wanted to shield me from it. Protect me. But he could never protect me from what’s inside my head.
The night I was attacked.
I remember it.
All of it.
EMAIL FROM SAM STOKES
FROM: samstokes@fizzle.com
TO: dontemailme1882@yahoo.com, eliotalice@gmail.com, benpirripcobalt@upenn.edu, aragorn1225@gmail.com, queenofthebula@gmail.com
After the mock panel, the rankings are as follows:
Charlie Keating Cobalt
Xander Hale
Eliot Alice Cobalt
Ben Pirrip Cobalt
Luna Hale
48
LUNA HALE
I don’t go back to sleep after the memory surge. For a while, Donnelly just holds me, but I’m jolted into an alert state with my thoughts and emotions on a turntable. And we decide to get some fresh nightly 3 a.m. air. Bundled up in jackets and beanies, Donnelly and I take Orion for a leisurely walk in Center City.
Snow dusts the city sidewalks. Barely any living soul out right now. I feel guilty for waking Frog and Quinn at first, but Donnelly has assured me they’re used to the strange hours. They’d be happier being woken up to protect me than being left asleep.
They follow behind us, rather than out in front, and it feels like it’s just me and my boyfriend on a nighttime stroll after an intense moment together. I wouldn’t say our spaceship has experienced turbulence. More like, emergency lights are flashing, and we’re both not totally certain how to shut them off.
Donnelly seems too awake to want to return to the penthouse anytime soon. He mumbles with a cigarette between his lips, “Uncle Stokes doesn’t know how to count. ‘Cause five should be one and one should be five.” He’s reading the Fizzle rankings on my phone, then passes it to me and blows smoke upward.
I vape. “I just wish he gave us more information on our placements. I can’t improve if I don’t know why I’m last.”
“You could ask him,” Donnelly suggests.
“I will,” I sing-song and nod, thinking I’ll try to get some feedback.
Orion sniffs around a grate.
“That fire hydrant has your name written all over it,” Donnelly tells the burly Newfie, and Orion hikes a leg to pee on said fire hydrant. He listens more to Donnelly than he does to me, and I like that Orion sees the goodness that I see in Donnelly.
“Good boy, Orion,” I say, and he wags his tail and barks in excitement. He tugs at the leash in Donnelly’s hand, and we continue our trek. Finding ourselves in Logan Square, a city park where benches circle a giant fountain.
Donnelly wraps Orion’s leash around the foot of a park bench, and after brushing snow off the seat, we sit together and stare out at a stone turtle, which typically squirts water out of its mouth. It’s frozen tonight.
Donnelly glances at the burning cigarette between his fingers. “You’re positive you don’t wanna call your neuro-doctors?”
“I will when the sun comes up,” I assure him. Farrow okayed me to go for a walk once my heartrate and blood pressure were normal. Donnelly has been sweeping my features for signs of breakage, as though the memories of that night would surely pulverize every last piece of me, but I’m not shattered.
The pain of that night—it hurts—but it’s also accompanied by so much clarity. The empty spaces are beginning to fill.
He eases each time he sees my lips tic upward in a smile—each time, he realizes I’m not a puddle he needs to scoop up off the floor. I think he’d do that, too, if he had to. I think he already has, and my love for him swells inside me again.