Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Neil leaned away from it with a heated, "You're sick."
Lola wound her arm around the back of his chair so she could hold her knife to the right side of his face. The blade cut a paper-thin line from his mouth to the corner of his eye. Neil went still at that warning and watched as Lola took the lighter from her brother. She gave it an experimental twirl and tipped it where she and Neil could see the red-hot coils inside. Lola nodded approval and favored Neil with one of her wide smiles.
"What do you think?"
Neil thought he was two seconds away from losing his cool. "I think fuck you."
"Don't flinch," she said, and pressed the lighter to his cheek.
She said not to move, but there was no way Neil could obey. Agony exploded in his face, knifing down his jaw to his throat and eating its way through his eye. The smell of charred skin only made the blinding pain worse and Neil couldn't hold his ground in front of it. Heat ate a fierce line through his other cheek as he retreated right into Lola's waiting knife. He felt it like a distant memory, an insignificant tickle against the inferno. Lola followed him when he retreated, keeping the lighter in place, but pulled back after a second to inspect her handiwork. Neil knew she put the lighter away because he saw her do it, but he still felt its metal and fire on his skin. Every passing second just made it worse until Neil's stomach was roiling inside of him.
"Better," Lola said, and dug her fingernails into his raw skin just to make him cry out again. "Don't you think?"
Neil didn't have the breath to answer. Every breath he gulped in was frantic and shallow, too short to make it to his lungs, just thick and quick enough to choke on. He twisted his head out of her reach and remembered her knife too late. He tore a second line down his cheek and hurriedly hunched forward instead. He couldn't go far with his hands locked behind the chair, but he had to try. Blood streamed slow and steady down his face, hot against his lips before it dripped off his chin and mouth to his thighs. He tasted it when he gasped for breath.
The lighter clicked again. Neil heard it like a gunshot and flinched.
"I know your father's going to ask, but I have to know now," Lola said. "You listening, Junior? Hey." She thumped his back with the hilt of her knife. "Where's the bird, hm? We've had some time to dig around since we figured out where you were, but there's no sign of her anywhere. Tetsuji says you told them she's dead. He was sure you were telling the truth. Me, I'm not so trusting."
"She's dead," Neil choked out.
Lola grabbed a fistful of hair to yank him upright. She'd put her knife aside so she could hold him with both hands, and her free hand clenched around his throat so tight he could barely breathe. She pulled him back against his chair, pinning his head to the headrest. Romero plucked the lighter out again, and Neil put up a desperate fight.
"She's dead," he said, almost wheezing through Lola's brutal grip. "She died two years ago after he beat her in Seattle. Do you think she'd have let me go to Palmetto if she was still alive? I signed up because I had nothing left."
"Do we believe him?" Lola asked Romero.
"Might as well be sure," Romero said.
"Right that," Lola said, and held fast to Neil so Romero could crush the lighter to his face once more. Lola's strangling grip on his throat meant the best Neil could manage was a pained whine. He thrashed mindlessly against his restraints. Lola was speaking again, but he couldn't understand her over the roar in his ears. His world narrowed down to the fire in his face.
Romero put the lighter away, but he pushed it in all the way so it'd reheat. Lola loosened her grip enough that Neil could breathe but didn't let go completely.
"Try again, Junior," Lola said. "Answer me and make me believe you. Where is Mary?"
"She's dead," Neil said, voice raw with pain. "She's dead, she's dead, she's dead."
Lola looked to her brother. "You believe him now?"
Romero lifted his shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. Lola considered Neil again, then smacked his burned face as hard as she could. She leaned further forward between the seats to get the lighter when it was ready and retreated back to her original cushion with it. Having the lighter behind him out of sight was worse than the pain they'd already put him through and Neil fought to yank his hands free. He tore his wrists open on unyielding metal but he couldn't stop.
"Don't," he begged. "Lola, don't."
"I've got questions," Lola said, voice oddly muffled. Neil guessed she was holding the lighter handle between her lips, because she used both hands to roll his sleeves up. She ran her hands down his bared forearms, fingernails scratching faintly at his skin. She withdrew a moment later, and her voice sounded normal when she spoke next. "Let's start with your teammates again. Tell me everything you told them."
Time stopped as Lola burned and cut a path up Neil's arms. Neil clung to a version of the truth that would protect the Foxes but no matter how many times he said it she wouldn't stop. Eventually he stopped answering altogether, afraid he'd slip up in his pain and panic, and saved his energy for breathing. Every grimace and silent cry pulled the burns on his face, and salty tears were acid on his ruined cheeks.
He didn't want to think about this, didn't want to feel this, so he thought about the Foxes instead. He clung tight to the memory of their unhesitating friendship and their smiles. He pretended the heartbeat pounding a sick pace in his temples was an Exy ball ricocheting off the court walls. He thought of Wymack holding him up in December and Andrew pushing him down against the bedroom floor. The memories made him weak with grief and loss, but they made him stronger, too. He'd come to the Foxhole Court every inch a lie, but his friends made him into someone real.