Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
He barely reacted, barely looking my way. “Your things were put into storage for safekeeping.”
“What about me? I can’t go into storage. My clothes. My things. My . . .” Okay. I wasn’t big on bonding with material things. There were a few items that I’d kill for, but it was mostly Easter Lanes and my friends. I’d slit a throat for them.
And yes, total darkness. I had some in me, but that was an area I liked to pretend wasn’t there. I’d been doing swell for so long. I wasn’t counting “the switch” as part of that, but who was I kidding? I knew it was connected.
Still. I could be pretty dark, and I was back to pretending it wasn’t there. One identity crisis at a time.
“I had your necessities put into a guest room at my place.”
“What?” I thought my humiliation had a time limit. Now it was on a perpetual circling motion, like when the internet wouldn’t connect. “Why? No. I want to go anywhere else. I don’t—”
“It’s for your safety.” His head turned my way.
I was ignoring the whole jaw-clenching thing or how his eyes flashed not to push him on this. I was so pushing. “I don’t want to be around you any more than I need to, and that’s enough of even that. I’ll stay at Pial—”
“Like fuck you will!”
I clamped my mouth shut, my pulse skyrocketing. I was getting heated. “Then Jess—”
“It’s for your safety!” he snapped, through gritted teeth. “The subject is closed.”
“No—”
“I don’t want you dead! How are you not comprehending that?”
“How are you not comprehending that I don’t give a damn what you want anymore!” I shot back. “I’ll stay with Jess.”
“And put her in danger? Her and her mother—because they stay at her mother’s half the time. Give Jess one more thing to worry about after she lost her best friend?”
God. He was right.
One last thing for Jess to worry about.
I settled. I had to. He was right.
He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I am trying to keep you off the radar of my best friend and Miss Montell for that very fact. The sooner we find out who killed Justin and Kelly, the sooner all of this can be put to an end.”
That was true. Jess. Justin. Kelly.
This was all for them.
But I was still embarrassed. The rejection had been swift, and yeah, it stung. Plus, I needed to pee, and the feeling just got worse after I folded my arms over my chest. I had no idea how that worked except that gravity must operate in amazing and complex ways.
I squirmed a little in my seat.
“What’s wrong?”
“That espresso was really good, but . . .”
“You have to go to the bathroom?”
“I mean, if you felt the need for a Slurpee, I’d use the bathroom.”
Ashton stared at me for a long time.
I was trying not to squirm, especially under this newest round of attention, but I couldn’t stop myself. I even did what you’re not supposed to do. I pressed my legs together, but man oh man. Sahara. Think of the desert. Dry. Camels. The heat. The sun. Being delusional and seeing water in the distance.
It wasn’t working. “I have to go bad.”
He nodded, touching a button. “If you could swing through the nearest gas station, please?”
His driver lowered the privacy divider. “We don’t have the usual amount of guards.”
Ashton was studying me again.
I was trying to sit on my hands. Maybe if I tipped my bladder this way, it’d help?
It wasn’t. I glanced at Ashton, and he took that as my response, saying for me, “We’ll have to make do.” He stared at me without blinking. “You’re like a child sometimes.”
“I’m aware.” I huffed, sinking low in the chair. “I’m working on it. There’s a whole list.”
He blinked now, but his gaze was still dry before he looked away. “There shouldn’t be.”
I glanced at him, frowning. What did that mean . . .
The driver hit the turn signal and began easing into the next lane toward the exit. “There’s one a block over.”
Ashton watched me as we got off the ramp and turned in to the gas station. The place itself wasn’t heavily populated. It was run down, bars around the clerks and on the windows and doors. Ashton took my arm, holding me in place as the driver went inside.
“He’ll check it first.”
I nodded, still thinking Sahara in my head until reality clicked into place when I saw Ashton pull a gun out of his coat. “What are you doing?”
He frowned. “Are you kidding?”
I flushed, remembering. “Sorry. I forget sometimes. I mean, I don’t, but I do. You’re you, and I don’t know. It’s like I have my own privacy divider to you and what you do in my head. We’re constantly in the back bickering while what you do is in front, you know, with the guns and the guards.”