Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
The urge to puke becomes overwhelming, and I gag. Closing my eyes, I try to breathe through it, focusing on inhaling and exhaling.
“Surprise!” My eyes whip open and land on the one and only psychopath, Heston. His brows lift with excitement and his smile is bigger than I’ve ever seen. He looks disheveled, his shirt untucked and wrinkled, and his blue jeans dirty. In fact, I think it’s the same clothes he was wearing the day I kicked him out.
My nostrils flare with fear, my eyes wide and watching.
“Did you miss me, wifey?” He puts on a pouty face, his bottom lip sticking out. I can’t reply because of the tape, but I’m sure whatever I’d say would only bring Rhodes and me pain.
“Of course you did,” he states, standing straight. “Sorry I’m not wearing my Sunday best but I’ve been living out of my truck because of you.” He walks to Rhodes first, putting his hand on the table, and scowls. The emotion locks his features into place like he was born with that look, every smile, joke, and laughter I’ve known from him merely a façade.
“You know this one’s a whore, right?”
What the hell does he mean? I never cheated on him. I loved him!
Pissed at his accusation, I mumble behind my tape, catching his attention. “Don’t worry, princess, I have something for you.” His promise laced in poison, I still.
“You know, Rhodes, I blamed you for everything. Crazy right?” He starts toward the kitchen, both Rhodes and I left with nothing to do but watch.
“I thought she wanted you instead of me, that you had something I didn’t,” he continues to explain. “But then I realized!” He turns on his heel, a crooked grin gracing his face despite the disgusting words he’s saying. “She’s a whore…like her mother.”
Wait what? My mother? Instinctively, I turn to look at the urn, my mother was a lot of things, but not a whore, so I don’t know what he’s getting at with that insult.
“Oh, don’t worry, Rain, Mommy gets to be here with us while I…well, kill you.” His head turns to the side, the darkness from the room shadowing his jawline ominously. Taking a plain white candle from the counter and leaving behind probably twenty more, he brings it up to his face and looks into the dancing flame. He’s mesmerized by it, as if the devil has reunited with his everlasting love.
“You know, when I was a kid, there was this bad winter, one unlike any other in Carolina. My mother and I were freezing. I even got sick. My skin was chilled to the bone, and I couldn’t tell if the blue hue on my toes were just veins or frostbite. My father went to the market and stood in line for three hours, making sure he’d be the first to get inside for a kerosene heater. Later that night, when we were snuggled in our bed, I woke to the fire alarms going off and the lick of a flame burning my leg. I remember kicking the blanket, crying from the feeling of my skin melting off. My mother rushed in and saved me, carrying me out of the house. I screamed for my father, who was left inside, demanding someone go back in…only to find out that he wasn’t home.” Heston’s glossy eyes slowly look to me. “He was out with another woman. He cheated on my mother and me and because of his indiscretions, I almost died.” I don’t understand what he’s saying, and my head throbs trying to figure it out.
“So, as you can see, I have a disdain about cheaters.” He slowly puts the candle back down and scratches the back of his head, walking back to the table Rhodes and me are at. Leaning down, his face inches from mine, he whispers, “Your mother killed my father.”
I don’t understand. Piercing irises stab into me. “Your whore of a mother killed my father!” he repeats. “The day I almost died, and the day he did die, he was with the same woman. Your mother!”
Suddenly everything comes together. The man my mother was dating, the guy she was with when she had her wreck and died was Heston’s cheating father.
“DING DING DING!” he yells, pointing at me. “I think she finally gets it, Rhodes.”
“My mother didn’t do anything wrong. She did everything for him, and it still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough!” He slaps his chest. “If you can take my father, my lifeline to a family…then I can take yours,” he yell-whispers. Heston scouted me out and hit on me on purpose that day. He played with me like a toy baiting me into his sick vengeance. “I was going to kill you right away, but then I met Paige, and I wanted you both for myself. I longed to have you as my new family, but you had to pull away from me. You just had to.”