Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
I’m not even entirely sure what I’m taking, I just know that I’m doing what I’m told, and that’s easier than trying to make a decision based on my own experiences, which are basically nil.
“Let’s go,” he repeats when the bag is full. He grips me by the arm and leads me out of my apartment down to the front of the building where a van is idling. Of course it is a van. Men like him don’t drive cars. They need more storage for… horrors, I suppose.
He helps me into the passenger seat, and then slings my bag into the dark void at the back. I hold my arm where I have been stabbed. It’s starting to ache. I’m starting to feel, even though that’s probably a mistake. I sit there while he walks around to the driver’s side. He passes the front of the van, and the light from the street lamps gleams off his blue hair. God. I’ve never seen anybody like him before.
Cosmos gets in beside me and glances over at me. “Put your seatbelt on.”
I can’t put my seatbelt on. The wound on my arm makes it hard to reach across. Cosmos realizes this at the same time I do. He leans over me. I feel his hard body brushing against mine. He smells like expensive cologne. Why didn’t I notice that before? Too panicked, perhaps. He snaps my seatbelt into place and gives me a wink.
From abject terror to a sense of safety, I have swung wildly from one emotional state to another over the course of the last hour. It has left me not only wounded, but exhausted.
We drive into the darkness of Heidelberg, the city I adopted several years ago. It is a city of old ruins and great history. It is also where my laboratory is situated.
“What just happened? Who was that?”
He glances over at me. “I will explain soon.”
He’s pulling up outside a church. I am confused. A hospital would seem more appropriate. I’m already getting the idea that nothing Cosmos does is appropriate.
“They won’t follow us here,” he explains, helping me out of the van. “There are friends inside. Let’s go.”
He has an urgency and a momentum to him that is very captivating. I am not used to being around men like him. The men in the lab are like me, logical and mostly dedicated to work. I was dating one of them, but not in an intense, passionate way. More in a, well, we’re going to need someone to settle down with eventually, sort of way. It was a passionless affair. We never even got around to having sex.
Cosmos escorts me from the van and up the steps of the old church. It feels solid and safe. Candlelight flickers inside and there are several hooded figures apparently waiting for us.
Cosmos leads me toward the altar. I suddenly realize I am still in my Hello Bunny nightgown. It is pink with little white bunnies on it. Some of them have been spattered with blood. My blood. It has dried in little speckles over their cute noses. I am a mess. I need a shower and I need to be properly dressed and I need to speak to the authorities.
“What is her name?” the priest at the altar asks.
“Let’s call her Bunny,” Cosmos says.
“Welcome, Cosmos and Bunny,” the priest says after a moment. He leans toward Cosmos. “You will need to use your legal names for the license.”
“Yes. I know. Just carry on. We don’t have much time.”
I stare at him, not knowing what the hell he is talking about. Now that we are standing together, he is much taller than me. He’s literally larger than life, a big beast emerged from the darkness to claim me. I am in survival mode, dazed, confused, and not entirely sure any of this is real.
The priest begins to speak.
“Marriage is the promise of…”
Cosmos makes a winding motion with his right index finger. “We don’t really have times for the bells and whistles, Father. Let’s do this.”
“Do you, Cosmos, take Bunny to be your wife?”
“I do,” he says.
What the everloving fuck is going on?
“Do you, Bunny, take Cosmos to be your husband?”
I open my mouth, not knowing what to say.
“I do…”
Cosmos cuts me off before I can finish the sentence, which was going to be I don’t know what’s happening.
“There we go!” he says, clapping his hand over my mouth. “She said I do. It counts! We’re done!”
“In the eyes of God, I pronounce you man and wife,” the priest says. “You may now consummate the marriage.”
Wait. What? Isn’t the line supposed to be you may now kiss the bride? Consummate? Isn’t that… that’s sex. I stare up at this tall, brutally handsome man and I feel twin chills of fear and excitement at the possibility of sleeping with him.