Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“You’re not running in the dark like this,” I disagreed.
“I’ve run this path every night for the last five years,” she said. “Trust me when I say, I’m prepared.”
“Were you?” I asked, crowding her close.
Something sharp pressed into my belly, and I looked down to see the moonlight glinting off of something silver.
“Why didn’t you use that on me earlier?” I asked.
“Because I’m pissed, and felt like this was the better way to go about it to get what I wanted.” She pulled the knife away from my belly.
Yet again, I felt a trickle of blood trickle down my side.
Reaching up, I rearranged the dog tags that were around my neck, making sure that they weren’t half on my back and half on my shoulder like they’d been, and encountered a leaf.
Plucking it off my chest, I threw it to the ground and said, “If you’re set on running, I’ll go with you.”
“How far have you run?” she asked, getting back onto the road with me.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve been running for close to an hour and a half, though.”
“What happened to make you need to run?” she asked as she started back at a slower pace.
My legs thanked her for the lower pace, and together we jogged back toward town as I explained my night to her.
“This Elisha person,” she said. “What makes her think that you’re going to be okay with her going to your parents, which she knows that you hate? What does she hope to accomplish?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself for the last hour,” I said. “I broke up with her months ago, too. I’m not sure what she’s trying to accomplish, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say she has a very good reason for it. I’m just not privy to that reason.”
“You should get a restraining order.” She paused. “Though that would require you to go to the police.”
The way she said ‘police’ made me grin. “You have a problem with them?”
“I have a problem with how they treat people who are struggling.” She paused. “My sister, Calliope, got caught shoplifting when she was sixteen. I know that it was wrong. But shit, we were hungry, and she was just trying to get some bread. She did it in a way that was stupid, and got caught, and then the officer that caught her assaulted her after he embarrassed the hell out of her. She’s had a chip on her shoulder ever since, and I haven’t looked at a cop the same way, either.”
We ran in silence for a few minutes before we finally made the turn back to the main road that would take us into town to her place.
“Let me know if you want me to rock her world or anything,” Searcy snickered.
That’s when I got my first good look at her.
She was filthy.
Her clothes were covered in dirt—that was now turning to mud due to the sweatiness—and she had leaves and sticks in her hair.
She had blood on her chest, likely from my lip, but she was smiling.
I was smiling, too.
Even when I looked down and saw the nail marks on my legs, the knife prick in my side still weeping blood, and the dirt everywhere.
We made it to her front door, and she pulled a key out of her bra before sticking it into the door.
Her eyes came to me and stayed there for a long minute before she said, “Thanks for the escort.”
I grinned. “Anytime.”
She unlocked her door and walked inside before closing it softly behind herself.
I jogged back down her steps and made my way back home, much slower, and less angry, than before.
When I got home and showered off, I took in my body in the mirror.
Scratches.
A small wound on my side.
My lip was busted.
Oh, and I had the makings of a black eye.
That didn’t keep the grin off my mouth, though.
A grin that stayed there until I fell asleep.
Fourteen
If I had one cookie, I’d split it in half, then give you the smaller piece.
—Searcy to Posy
SEARCY
I woke like any other day.
My eyes were crusty.
I had an aching back because my mattress was the same one that my mom had bought thirty years ago.
Oh, and I was fairly sure based on how my uterus was currently revolting that I was either on my period, or seconds away from starting my period.
Which was just fucking perfect because I was out of tampons—Calliope had used them all up last week—and didn’t really have the money to waste seeing as Anders and Kent both had school trips that I’d had to pay for.
I was deliciously sore…everywhere.
Well, other than my uterus.
That wasn’t sore in a fun way.
I was just glad that I got sex last night before this bullshit period hit.
Though, I had a feeling that Posy Hicks was the kind of man that wouldn’t let a little ol’ period stop him from getting what he wanted.