Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
But she doesn’t just stop at tattoos.
When she’s finished with his chest, she fucks up his face. And I mean really fucks it up. With cigarette burns and knife marks.
My best guess for this one? She wants him to be as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.
Or maybe as ugly as she feels herself.
If I could feel empathy for someone, I might have stopped her. But I don’t. I’m fucked up in my own special way and the tears of rich men are my opiates of choice.
When it’s all said and done, I feel nothing when I look at him.
There is nothing but emptiness when Storm cleans up and packs her bag. She walks to the door, and I think she’s going to leave. But first, she drops a bomb.
“Your name is Tenly. Tenly Albright.”
I flinch, and it’s involuntary.
Storm smiles.
“How…”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “Your secret’s safe with me. But word on the street is there’s a cop with a hard on for you, sweetheart. So maybe you should do all the rest of us a favor and stay the fuck out of the way.”
With that parting gift, she leaves me. And I’m still staring at the door, wondering if it was all a hallucination. Wondering if she drugged me too.
That’s when the client chooses to mumble a coherent thought.
“That guy.”
“What guy?”
“The picture,” he groans. “You showed me a picture of the guy once.”
I’m firing on all cylinders now. Up and off the bed and moving towards him. He recoils, but there’s nowhere for him to go.
“Please,” he begs. “I’m trying to give you what you want.”
“What the fuck is his name?” I demand.
“I don’t know,” he spews. “I’ve never known. But I think he is a cop. I’ve been seeing him around.”
“Where specifically?”
“That bar downstairs,” he says. “He’s been scoping the place out. But not until late. He’s always there after ten when I see him. I heard him asking about you. He had a drawing of you, telling people this is what you might look like now.”
I mull over his words as my eyes burn into his face. This feels too easy. And it doesn’t make sense. There’s no fucking way Alexander’s a cop.
“If you’re lying to me…”
“I swear,” he says. “I’m not lying. I just want you and that other psycho to leave me alone. Please.”
I toss him a smile before I pivot on my heel and head to the door. Looks like the creep finally learned his lesson.
And for once, I’m happy to oblige.
Three
Scarlett
I don't want to be a fool. Even a beautiful one.
The clock on the stove glares at me with neon green numbers when I drag myself out of bed. It’s after ten. And I’ve officially become a vampire, though I’m not sure when it happened. I hunt all night and nap during the day, only coming alive when the sun sets all over again.
The silence is pervasive as I sit at the counter and drink my coffee. Quiet. Always quiet. No television. No music. Just silence.
The thing I simultaneously need and hate most.
I am hypersensitive by nature and my nights are loud and chaotic. Overwhelming. The lights and the noise are acid to my psyche, but I endure. My punishment for playing the game.
When my mug is empty, I throw on an old tee shirt and a pair of leggings and lace up my running shoes- bunny ear style. Then it’s another cup of the usual. Neurosis.
The appliances come first. I unplug them and check them again, and then fifty times more, just to be sure. Because there could be a fire and then the animals in the building could be trapped because not everyone’s home during the day. And so I count the knobs on the stove too, because I never use it, but you just don’t know. Maybe one got bumped. Or maybe I turned it on when I meant to check that it was off. This whole parade of insanity usually takes me about fifteen minutes or so.
When I leave, I lock all six locks on my door. And then count them. And then re-lock them again because maybe I missed one.
The third and final step of my compulsion is to linger in the hallway like the lunatic that I am, resisting the urge to go back inside and re-check everything. I tell myself that it’s fine. I tell myself I did everything just right.
And then I take a step. And another. And eventually it gets easier to walk away, with a few deep breaths too.
Mrs. Roger’s cat Whiskey is sitting at the end of the hallway when I get to the stairwell. I only know my neighbor’s name because sometimes she comes to knock on my door to accuse me of stealing Whiskey.
I do let Whiskey inside sometimes. He’s nice. And he’s a cat, not people, so technically I’m allowed to like him. But he can only ever visit for a little while. Because in this life I don’t get attached to anything.