Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“Will you give Apollo a call?” I asked. “See what he can find out?”
“Sure thing.” He hesitated. “She probably came from a good place.”
I sincerely didn’t care.
What I cared about was my sister’s health.
I hung up without replying, then stared at my sister for so long that she groaned and threw up her hands. “What is your problem right now? Were you hiding from me?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I couldn’t see a way to bring you up here with me without your asthma acting up.”
She grimaced, and the guilt that flashed across her face let me know that she was, indeed, already having issues. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she snapped.
I sincerely doubted it.
“Tell me how bad it is,” I ordered.
“I’m fine,” she again lied.
No. No, she wasn’t.
“Bernice Lynn,” I hissed.
She threw up her hands. “So I had an attack when I got off the plane. That’s normal!”
I frowned. “Normal?”
“I have issues all the time, Justin.”
“Creed,” I corrected her. “I don’t go by Justin anymore.”
Her face softened. “You always loved your middle name.”
I had.
It’d been my grandfather’s.
“Now I go by Creed Justin Daugherty.”
“Great-Grandpa’s entire name. Nice.” She frowned. “I’m fine. I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m handling it.”
Her eyes skittered away, though, confirming that she was full of shit.
“Stay here,” I said. “I have to go take care of something. Then we’ll talk.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“To talk to Birdee.”
“Be nice to her, Jus—Creed. She was coming from a really good place.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really care.”
Fourteen
The lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch.
—Birdee’s secret thoughts
Birdee
I was exhausted after having not slept a single wink last night.
I stayed awake, wondering if every single sound I heard was my stepfather coming back into my place.
By the time the sun rose, I gave up on sleep and started unpacking.
After I did a load of laundry, I took a shower, got ready for the day, and prepared the ‘I quit this stupid job’ letter.
Stacy was going to be pissed, but it was something that I had to do.
Charleigh had already handed in her resignation yesterday via email, meaning Stacy was already short one person. Now he was about to be short two.
He would have to do it all himself until he found someone else to do the hard part—handling the actual snakes.
I wouldn’t bother giving two weeks’ notice.
I started with Great Dane’s tomorrow, and I was very open with my intent to come to work immediately and leave my other job.
At first, they weren’t too excited about how I was leaving it, but they understood once I’d explained about Stacy and how uncomfortable he made me. Turns out, the owner’s wife had also been made to feel uncomfortable by Stacy, and concurred that she’d have left the job the same way had she been in my situation.
Charleigh was starting tomorrow with me, and I was super excited about my official ‘big girl’ job.
It took me over ten years to get to this very point in my life, and now that it was here, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.
What do you mean I no longer have to study my every available second?
What do you mean I can come home after work and actually relax?
What do you mean that I will make a livable wage?
I was lost in thought as I waited for my letter of resignation to print out that I didn’t hear the screech of tires outside of my house, or the thunderous sound of boots pounding up the walkway to my house.
I did, in fact, hear the door get smashed in, though.
Then Creed was there, looking ferociously angry, and ready to beat the shit out of me.
I expected him to be angry.
I didn’t expect him to bust down my door and start yelling the moment he saw me.
I stared in stunned silence as his anger practically filled the room between us.
Anger swirled around him like a storm, and I’d never seen him as scary until right that minute.
He walked right up to me, pointed his finger in my face, and said, “You killed my sister.”
His words stunned me silent for a few short seconds. Long enough to make him angrier at my lack of response.
I blinked. “I did what?”
I hadn’t done that…had I?
Did I black out and forget a few hours?
“There was a reason I didn’t want her here, you fucking bitch,” he hissed, his eyes so cold that I could barely look at them. “She can’t live in Montana. She has anemia and the fuckin’ world’s worst asthma. I have nowhere else to go. It was better if she thought I was dead.”
I opened my mouth and closed it, unsure what to say or think about that.
My stomach sank. “I didn’t think…”
“No, we clearly can tell that you didn’t.” He pushed his finger into my chest, not to the point of pain or anything, but not gently, either. “Stay out of my fucking life. And if you tell anyone about me or the rest of the crew, I’ll tell everyone you killed your own mom.” He swept his eyes up and down the length of me. “And let’s just say, I don’t think you’d last too long in jail.”