Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Remorse and defeat.
Like he’s about to give up.
Surrender his life … to save hers.
“No, don’t you dare,” I tell him. “Dylan, don’t you dare let go, you hear me?”
“I can’t let him win,” he says.
“Dylan,” Penelope mutters, crying her eyes out. “Please, don’t do this.”
“All of this is because of me and my father,” he says. “All of this misery … it could end so easily.”
“Dylan!” she yells, making a fist. “I won’t fucking forgive you.”
His pupils dilate, and his jaw tenses in response.
All of us are looking up at Penelope.
“You die now, and I will never, ever forgive you.”
“Pen—”
“No! You wanted to be forgiven?” She swallows in the face of a loaded gun. “Then fucking earn it.”
Dylan swallows, and his resolve suddenly strengthens as he clutches the caving rocks tighter, fighting for the right to stay alive.
In a split second, he flicks open the zipper that holds his pocket together and out slithers Nessie.
Felix frowns. “Nessie?”
She crawls down Dylan’s leg all the way to his father, who begins to panic.
“No, no, stay away,” he says with a jittery voice. “Get away from me!”
He tries to shoot but misses.
Nessie wriggles her way across his hand and down his arm, her tail still curled firmly around Dylan’s leg as if she’s adamant to hold on.
“Get off!” the dean shrieks, wriggling to get her to fall, but the more he moves, the more he loses his grip on Dylan’s ankle.
And all of us watch in awe as Nessie opens her jaws and bites him right in the face.
“Arghh!” he yells, slamming himself in the face with his gun, which tumbles down into the void.
But Nessie swiftly strikes again, this time in his eye.
“AHHH!” he screams, and in his panic, his hand loses its grip. “No, no, no!”
Too late.
The last thing we hear are his deathly screams as he plunges toward his end.
And all we can do is stare.
Penelope
What are they all waiting for? There’s no time to lose.
I bend my knees and extend a hand to Dylan too. “Grab my hand!”
Felix and Ali are spurred back into action, tugging at his wrist while Dylan finally reaches for my hand with his bloody arm. Together, we pull him up from the land of the dead and back onto the actual ground. I breathe a sigh of relief as he lands on top of me, groaning in pain.
“Motherfucker …” Felix grumbles. “Don’t you ever pull that shit again.”
Dylan laughs but then grunts in pain again, and he rolls off me and onto the grass to catch his breath. “God, I could really use a cig right now.”
Ali rolls over and hands him one from his pocket.
“Wow, that was quick,” Dylan says.
“I keep this one for a rainy day,” he muses.
Dylan snorts as he stuffs it into his mouth. “Oddly appropriate.” He lights it, despite the rain almost dousing the flame, but he doesn’t care as he takes a long drag and blows out the smoke.
“Here,” he says, and he hands it to Ali, who also takes a drag.
“Thanks,” Ali says after taking another whiff, and he pushes it through to Felix. “Take it.”
Felix doesn’t protest and takes a drag too. “Fuck. What a night.”
“What about you, Pen?” Ali asks. “Wanna try too?”
But all I can do is look at them smoking out here in the wet grass, soaked and covered in the blood and guts of their enemies, completely unaware of the magnitude of their actions.
A weird laugh escapes my mouth from the absurdity of it all, which slowly turns into a cry that won’t end. All the emotions are pouring out of me like a faucet left open. As though everything that’s been cooped up in my heart has finally found a way to bleed out and fade.
My sister is finally avenged.
“Are you crying?” Ali asks.
Dylan crawls closer, despite the pain, and says, “No, no, don’t cry.”
“Aw shit,” Felix growls, pushing the bud into the grass.
“You almost died,” I say.
“I’m alive,” Dylan says, and he rolls over sideways to rub the tears off my cheeks with his thumb. “Thanks to you.”
“Hey now, we deserve a little credit too,” Ali protests.
“I’m alive thanks to all of you guys, of course,” Dylan says with a smile.
Felix gives him a soft slap on his good shoulder. “You really thought about giving up there. Fuck you.”
“Knowing you, you would’ve chased me down into hell itself,” Dylan jokes.
“You bet your ass I would,” Felix responds.
“Well, lucky we don’t have to,” Ali says, reaching for the snake curled around Dylan’s leg. “Thanks to sweet little Nessie here.”
He grabs and pets her while Dylan slowly sits in the grass.
Rain pitter-patters down onto us, and Dylan raises his face toward the sky. Despite the cold, despite the wounds on his shoulder and waist, despite just losing his father, there’s still a smile on his face.