Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
I press the heel of my palm into my eye socket. Fuck. “Can I ask you something?” I train my voice to stay steady. To carry no weight.
“Anything.”
Her voice is pure sunshine. It’s not even manufactured. I saw myself in her. I thought, I don’t pretend. I just am this way. I’m not made to feel like I’m sinking.
I’m made to break up conflicts between Nova and Rocky.
I’m made to take the risks no one else can take.
I’m made to cut the tension when the room is strained.
So, why do I just want to fall down and scream? Hailey is safe. She’s safe. She’s not hallucinating. She’s okay. That should be enough.
I adjust my grip on my burner phone. “Did Dad ever have an interest in kids when you were working with him?”
“In what way?”
“Did he want them?” I reach the vending machines and lift my dark sunglasses to my head. One is snacks, the other drinks—just Fizzle products. I fish out my wallet.
“Well…” She trails off, thinking. “We always talked about what kids would look like—the four of us. The way you would when you’re young and not thinking it’d happen right away, but for us, it was about, How does this work with our work? We all had those conversations. Made pros and cons lists, wondered if it’d be worth the risk, and little did we know, it’d just fall into our laps. Brayden was all alone, and Addy and Everett weren’t going to leave him with Varrick. And then you three were a big surprise not long after we left Victoria.”
“So those conversations you had about little baby grifters,” I say lightly, propping my phone with my shoulder and taking out a couple dollar bills, “it was hypothetical for all of you?”
“We were in our early twenties. None of us wanted kids that young, spider. It was a big, big risk.” I hear her voice go unsteady. “I mean…it wasn’t unusual for Varrick to want to take the risk. Why are you asking this anyway?”
“My brain. Cycling through the ways I came into this world.” I feed the bills into the machine and say, “By immaculate conception.”
She laughs.
“By force,” I add.
Her laugh cuts into a sharp breath. “No.”
“By accident on your part.”
“Yes.”
“By accident on his part.”
She’s quiet.
“By manipulation.”
“I…I don’t know. I can’t know if he messed with my birth control. That was a long time ago.”
“Did you ever suspect it?”
The phone is dead quiet for a solid fifteen seconds. I check to ensure I didn’t lose connection. I wait for her to respond in case she’s not alone.
“I did…once or twice. Addy thought maybe he switched my pills with placebos, but to be honest, spider…” I’ve rarely heard my mom cry. Even now, she sucks in a noise that’d follow tears. “I didn’t want to believe it. Because that’d mean he wanted you three, and I wanted you all to myself.”
I press a hand on the glass. More weight slams down on me. I thank her. Tell her I need to go. We say our goodbyes, and I tap a couple numbers on the vending machine’s keypad.
Do not freak out, Oliver.
I watch a Payday dispense. My eyes can’t stop burning. Breathe. I put a hand on my taut chest, then quickly collect the candy bar.
It’s too heavy.
I squat beside the machine. I balance my forearms on my knees. Breathe. I gasp for air. Breathe. I stare up at the lights blinking in and out. Breathe. Oxygen won’t reach my lungs, no matter how much I try to inhale.
I tear the wrapper. I break the candy bar in half. Caramel and nuts. Then again into fourths. I can’t breathe. I can’t even remember the last time I ate candy. Going to need to run this off…No, because how can I even eat it when I’m suffocating?
I hate this feeling.
I want nothing to do with this feeling.
How do I get rid of this feeling?
“Oliver?”
I can’t even see him. A hot, disorienting film coats my eyes. I just hear Jake and his hurried footfalls. Relief is so far away. I might pass out. I might actually pass out squatting beside a vending machine holding a Payday.
A Payday, it’s hitting me like another fifty-pound weight plate. Right as Jake crouches down in front of me. Right as he clasps the side of my jaw. Right as he tells me, “Oliver, Oliver, I’m here. It’s okay, hey—”
“Jake,” I choke out and fall on my ass, trying to kick him back. My hands are covered in peanuts. Jake is deathly allergic to nuts.
He rests a knee beside me. Not giving up on me, and that about rips something inside me—because I’m going to kill him. I am actively killing him while he’s helping me.
It takes all my energy to chuck the candy bar down the pathway. Several feet away from us. I scrape my hands against the pavement.