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)
Rory wants me to believe that there is something in me worth saving. That if I cross this boundary, I will regret it.
But he’s wrong.
Because when I snuck out of his bed in the middle of the night, glancing over my shoulder at his sleeping face, nothing had ever been so clear to me.
There are some boundaries even I am not willing to cross.
And bringing him into this, using him as a soldier for my cause, is one of them. The moral dilemma of taking a human life falls by the wayside when you are at war. It’s a matter of action and reaction.
I will never be free until they are gone.
This is my battle. And mine alone.
I will be the one to live with the consequences.
A key rattles in the front door, and I grow still.
Someone stumbles into the darkness and bumps the side table in the entryway, muttering a curse. Keys fall into the key bowl, and the footsteps move to the kitchen.
A refrigerator door opens. And then he returns.
Trip doesn’t bother with the lights. He collapses onto the sofa across from me and drinks straight from the bottle of vodka. Liquor soaked sweat suffocates the space around him, and this is what he has become.
It takes him a few minutes to settle in, and he is not at all aware of his surroundings. That comfortable sense of security and peace is only afforded to someone who believes their victim is dead.
His head falls back onto the sofa, and he scrubs a hand over his face. It remains there for a few short moments, quiet, almost meditative. Then he leans forward, elbows on his knees as he tinkers with his little black case on the coffee table.
This is the moment he realizes he is not alone. Even the most drug-addled brains are capable of sixth senses. Or perhaps it is the drugs that makes him see monsters lurking around every corner. Today, though, he sees a ghost.
And that ghost is me.
I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking right now, mouth slack and face pale.
He doesn’t speak. His hands are still half frozen with the task of preparing his next fix.
Only, it isn’t coke in that case. It’s heroin. Even in the dim light, it is easy to see he is a long-time user.
His face is gaunt and sunken in, lips tinged with blue. There is no vitality left in his body. He can barely lift his arm. Everything about him is slow. His thoughts, his reactions, his words.
This place has changed him too.
“I knew you would come,” he says finally.
“How?” I ask.
I am dead to him. Was dead to him. There is no way he could know that unless Alexander already told him.
Trip shakes his head. “Alexander told us he came back up here and moved your body,” Trip explains. “But that was a lie. Because I came back up here first.”
“Why?” I ask, and it doesn’t matter. His remorse won’t save him, but I am curious.
He’s quiet, tapping the needle against his fingers while his foot keeps the same rhythm on the floor.
“I really liked you, Ten. But I wasn’t the one your mother picked. She would never pick me over Alex.”
He isn’t telling me anything I don’t know. His crush was obvious, but just like him, I had no say in the matter.
“So, you just took what you wanted, anyway.”
Trip’s quiet again.
“Yeah,” he says. “I did. I took it. And I wanted to murder every one of those motherfuckers for touching you too.”
“How chivalrous of you.”
“I know it doesn’t matter,” he says. “But it fucked me up, Ten. It fucked me up so bad. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Wondering where you were. Wondering if you were alright. I knew you weren’t dead, but they didn’t. And I always thought you’d come back for us.”
“Well, here I am. Sorry to be so predictable.”
“You want to hurt me,” he says. “I get it. And I don’t blame you.”
“Hurt implies short term suffering. I’m sorry to say that you’re wrong.”
He nods, and there isn’t even an ounce of fight in him when he looks up at me.
“I was the one who filled up the bottle that second time. The water. I just wanted you to pass out so you wouldn’t remember. But I gave you too much.”
“Water under the bridge,” I say. “I didn’t come here to rehash what you did or didn’t do. I know. I know everything. And I remember it too. I don’t need you to tell me how it went down.”
He nods.
Neither of us moves. Until he waves the needle in his hand in question.
“Do you mind? One last time.”
I don’t know him at all.
How did we become these people?
This addict who accepts death without question, his only request to have one last bump. And me, the society princess turned cold and calculating bitch sitting across from him.