Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“I don’t make deals with terrorists.”
Emma gasped. “I am not terrorizing you, Cal!”
“You have a picture that could very well terrorize me, bella. Give it to me right now.”
“Nope.”
“Emma.”
She shivered at his growl.
“I hope you know when you sound like that, it only turns me on,” she told him.
Calisto smirked. “Give me the phone, and I will make you a very happy woman.”
Emma hugged it to her chest. “But ... it makes me happy, too, Cal.”
He finally stopped walking.
She stopped, too.
“Someday,” she said, “they’re going to be all grown up, or too old to do this kind of stuff, and this is what we’re going to have left of it, you know? They won’t even remember these days, Cal. But I want to.”
“Do you really need a picture of me done up in makeup?”
She shrugged. “I have one of you wearing a tiara and having tea, too.”
Calisto groaned and glanced up at the ceiling. “Why?”
“I just told you why—they make me happy, too.”
He pressed his lips together and eyed her from the side. “That’s unfair.”
“I never said I played a clean game.”
“True.” Calisto sucked in a deep breath and said, “Fine, keep your pictures.”
“Like you were ever going to take them from me, anyway.”
Calisto meh’d under his breath. “And for the record, they’re going to remember these days, Emma. That’s why I do it. So, they have what we didn’t.”
Yes.
Good parents.
Good memories.
Love.
Their children had everything that they didn’t.
And she was so grateful.
All Hallows’ Eve
Calisto glanced over his shoulder, chuckling at the sight of his son doing his best to look ... well, tough wasn’t quite the right word. More like ... indifferent. Eight-year-old Cross loved Halloween. Just like his sister, Cam. Really, they took that from their parents. The one night of the year when he and his wife could let go a bit, have some fun ... scare the whole fucking block, even. All that sweetness his wife retained throughout the year could disappear in a blink when someone gave her a vat of fake blood and told her to have some fun.
It wasn’t a surprise their kids followed the tradition. Cross just liked to take things one step further—with their haunted house done for the year, and final night of Halloween there, Emma and Cal took their kids through their gated community for the usual trick or treating.
Except Cross had to make a whole show of it.
Or rather, a story around it.
The kid had an imagination, that was for sure. Hence why he walked behind them looking unbothered with bloodstained hands, a spattered leather jacket, and a pair of black jeans that had seen better days where the knees were concerned.
Black on black.
Hair slicked back.
“Are you really going to walk behind the whole time?” Camilla asked her brother.
“Why not?”
“Because ... I don’t know.”
Cross shrugged. “You just don’t get it, Cam.”
Before the two could start a whole new argument—they’d had four before the four of them left the house earlier; well five, if you counted the enforcer staying thirty yards back—Emma was quick to step in with a bloodied, battered face looking sideways at her kids in that way.
All mothers had the look.
The kids shut up just like that.
It was a little disconcerting when Emma’s look only made her FX makeup seem all the more terrible and scary. The white dress she wore to complete her costume, ripped and tattered, was just as bloodstained as the rest of them.
Cal’s was just a suit.
Camilla wore her ballerina outfit.
With blood, of course.
Some scars.
Gory shit.
It wasn’t Halloween without a little gore.
Or in their family’s case, a lot.
“That’s enough,” Emma said. “First house.”
That was that.
Camilla skipped ahead of her mother on the dimly lit path to head for the front door of one of their neighbors. The same one that had about pissed himself the week before when he walked through the Donatis’ haunted house.
Fun times.
She pressed the doorbell, and then quickly came back to stand next to her mother. Calisto wasn’t far behind, and neither was Cross. Although, as was the kid’s plan, he stayed a bit back because he didn’t want to look entirely with them, apparently.
The neighbor opened the door with a bowl of candy in hand—the usual Halloween shit, just a different year.
“Calisto, Emma,” the man greeted. Then, his gaze darted to a bloodied Camilla before finding Cross aa few paces back. “I sense a theme.” He pointed at Cam, saying, “Dead ballerina.”
“Yep.”
“Dead ... wife?” the man asked Emma.
She shrugged. “Or mother.”
The man nodded, but looked to Cal saying, “Same, then?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did you all have to make it look so ... real?”
“That’s the best part,” Calisto returned.
“Is it?”
Absolutely.