Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I sit up and grab the bowl, sending water splashing over my hands and leave my room, wandering the clubhouse halls. Most of the visitors have left and the prospects cleaned the mess, leaving the smell of disinfectant in the air.
“What are you doing?” I ask when I stumble upon Grease up a ladder.
“Pres wants cameras fitting in the passageways.” He says, tightening a screw and positioning the lens. The ladder looks ready to buckle under his hulky frame, so I take a step back.
“Aren’t the cameras in all the common rooms enough?”
“I don’t ask questions sweetheart, I just do the work.”
“It’s ridiculous, next he will want them in our bedrooms. This place is starting to resemble a prison.”
Snorting, he sticks me with a pointed stare, “Trust me, I’ve served time, it isn’t.” If they put a camera near my bedroom, I’m hanging my bra over it. “Are you carrying a goldfish around?”
Looking to the bowl, I shrug. “Yeah.”
Inhaling a gust of air he chuckles, “Okay, that’s totally normal.”
“Normal is boring.” I huff, leaving him to his job.
“Kitty,” Maggie calls out as I pass the kitchen, making me backtrack.
Furrowing my brow, I take in the three women, all replicas, huddling around Diamond on a laptop. “What’s going on?”
Diamond waves me over, and curiosity gets the better of me.
Placing the bowl on the counter, I lean over Maggie’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the screen.
It’s a news article about a murder with an image I recognize. “Is that Tim?” I gasp.
“His real name is Harvey,” Diamond announces, tapping her long painted nail on the screen. Harvey Wickworth.
“Harvey doesn’t suit him,” one of the blondes says.
“Doesn’t matter now, he’s dead,” I point out. “What does it say happened?”
“Stabbed.” Maggie makes the motion for effect, and one of the other women giggles. Morbid.
“They have his girlfriend in custody,” Diamond tuts. “Or who they think is. Found her at a gas station covered in his blood.”
It’s a shame. I liked him. But what had he done to drive her to such extremes? He was no doubt playing mind games with her and eventually she snapped. Maybe that will happen to me too.
“Is that a goldfish?” Maggie’s voice pierces my thoughts. She dips her finger in the bowl, and I smack her hand away. Who does that?
“Yes.”
“Why do you have a goldfish?” Diamond frowns.
“I honestly don’t know.” A laugh rumbles from my chest. Scooping the bowl back into my arms, I leave them to discuss the name that does suit the dead Tim and head to Cutter’s room. I’ll leave the damn fish there. He can worry about feeding it. I try the handle without knocking. It gives under my hand, and I push inside. His scent envelopes me in an embrace he can’t deny me.
Then the world stills.
All the air flees my lungs.
“Cutter?” the female voice groans from beneath the comforter on his bed.
My fingers clutch the bowl so my shaking arms don’t drop it. Sickness swills my empty stomach, and tears burn my eyes without permission.
“Cutter?”
No. No. No. No. No. No.
Claire’s blonde hair peeks from beneath the gray comforter, followed by her blue eyes, elegant features bare of makeup, and slim, naked shoulders.
“Kitty?” Her voice shakes, eyes widening.
“What are you doing in here?” My words lash out like a whip. This isn’t real. I’m asleep in my bed. I didn’t leave my room. Pinch me, pinch me, please, someone, pinch me.
Startled eyes focus on the presence over my shoulder, the heavy booted footfalls joining my hellscape. I can’t take my eyes from the whore in his bed. The bed I crept into every night for months.
“Kit.” The cautious, almost soft way he says my name fills my bones with lead. Guilt. That’s fucking guilt in his tone.
“What did you do?” This was always going to happen. But so soon? And with her—HER!
“We need to talk,” he says, but I’m not sure which of us he means. “Claire, go get some food or something, yeah?”
“Okay,” she murmurs, pushing the covers from her body. Her fingers cling to a towel that gapes, showing too much skin.
Snatching a t-shirt from the dresser on her way past me, I have to fight every instinct screaming to tear her hair out. She drops the towel without shame and drags the fabric over her body before scooting out the door.
Silence weights down the room, making my limbs feel too heavy for my frame. “Did you seriously fuck her?” Anger, disgust, and raw heartbreak spew into every word I speak.
This is the end.
“It’s complicated, Kit,” he says to my back.
Whipping around to face him, the bowl in my hands flies across the room before I even register throwing it at him. Clear shards shatter on impact, water raining down the wall beside his head. Our poor goldfish flops at his feet, just like my withered dying heart.