Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“It’s not that funny,” Piston says.
“I mean it kinda is.” And then my mind considers the potential of an empty beach on a warm summer night with three big, sexy bikers and it isn’t quite as funny. It’s a lot of other things, though, that I’m not sure I can be trusted with.
"You alright? You did good back at the bar, but shit like that can still rattle you afterwards." Beast watches me curiously.
"Yeah, I’m okay. Not that it wasn’t a little scary, but I could tell you were watching out for me, and it wasn’t my first rodeo, you know? Relatively speaking, this was a day at the park."
“You don’t owe us your story, baby, but if you wanna give it, we’ll listen,” Zero says. “We know some of what happened after Quickshot and the others met Natalie, but not your side of things.”
“You sure you want to hear it?” I sit on the rock, the surface still hanging onto the warmth of when the sun was up, letting the water lap at my toes. They sit beside me on either side.
Piston reaches down and splashes my leg. “Go on, rip off the bandage.”
“I was fourteen when our parents died. I was really into the emo scene even before the accident, you know? Heavy eyeliner, shaggy hair, striped arm warmers, the whole nine yards. But I was a nerdy alternative kid posting my art and poems online, not actually getting into real trouble. Nat was eighteen. She tried to take care of me, but she was my sister, not my mother. Every time she tried to act like a parent, it just made me mad. I started skipping school and going to parties whenever I could. For a while it was the only thing that felt good when everything else was shit.”
Beast hums in agreement. “I know that feeling.”
“There was always drinking and drugs around if you knew the right people. God, it happened so fast and so slow at the same time. One day I was hanging out with the kids who knew who to ask, and the next I was friends with the ones you ask. They were all older than me, most of them should’ve really been at college parties, but high-schoolers are easy to impress and have fewer options. By the time I was fifteen, I wasn’t at the high-school parties anymore and I’d met a guy…”
“How old?”
“Twenty-six.”
"Is he still breathing?" Zero asks, murder in his voice.
I shiver. The chill that races through me is both scary and a little exciting. I feel like I’m holding my ex’s life in my hands with my answer. “I don’t know. Seth wasn’t… he didn’t force me. It was just toxic.”
"You were a fucking kid,” Beast growls. “I’m twenty-seven. Think about that for a minute. Fifteen-year-olds are like flowers. You might stop and think ‘man, that’s a pretty flower’ but then you move the fuck on with your day.”
Logically, I know he’s right, but in my head, I can still remember how special it felt to be chosen. To feel beautiful and ‘mature for my age’. One of the confusing parts to look back on is knowing that I actually was, but not like he meant it. I had to grow up fast to deal with some of what I did, and Seth? He was an immature loser who should’ve known better. We met somewhere in the middle.
“Natalie tried, she really did, but she didn’t know what to do. I don’t even remember moving in with him. I just stopped going home. Seth sold drugs and partied, and they called me his sidekick. It… It wasn’t great, but he made me feel like I’d made my choice.”
"What got you out?" Piston asks with a frown. "You said a judge put you into a rehab program, right?"
“Yeah. Eventually the cops raided the apartment we were sharing with a few other people. I got picked up along with everyone else, but I was the only minor. They could’ve been a lot harder on me, but Natalie used what was left of the money she’d saved from our parents’ life insurance to get a decent lawyer. I gave her such a hard time, but she was still there for me.” Unshed tears sting the corners of my eyes.
Beast’s strong arms pull me into his broad, warm chest. "Neither of you deserved that shit. Eighteen? She had no chance. The fact that you guys came out of it as well as you did, and are still talking to each other? That means something."
My throat is thick and aching. I grab his cut in my fists, just for something to cling to. "Does it? My stupid choices almost got her killed again when Seth told the Unwanted that I had the hundred grand he owed them before skipping town."