Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Saffie’s skin was smooth and perfect. I wondered where the symbol brand was. My blood spiked in temperature when I thought of it, but then the thought quickly got washed away by the numbness. Nothing had ever felt better. Saffie’s head tipped to the side as she studied me. I smirked at the cute as fuck look on her face and her lips as they pouted. Fuck. There wasn’t anyone like her.
I remembered Flame calling Maddie his angel in the woods. Saffie was mine. I was a shade lost in Hades, no coins on my eyes, drowning in the river Styx. She was the soul that watched over me. The fucking angel who watched over me, the demon selling his soul, bartering with the devil for his one-way ticket to hell.
“You look troubled,” she said finally. Her voice was like the ringing of a bell—a church bell, calling its people to worship. I smiled at Saffie but she didn’t smile back.
“I’m good.” Saffie lifted her head.
Her dark eyes narrowed. “I can see through your deception,” she said. My jaw ticked. I needed people to believe I was okay. I didn’t want them to know of all the fucked up things going in my head.
“Yeah?” I said. “How? You never come out of your fucking house.” My words tasted like acid as I launched them from my mouth. Saffie’s eyes widened. It was a fucking bullet to the heart when I saw her head flinch at my cheap shot. Yet she refocused and straightened her shoulders.
“I see you,” was all she said. Three simple words that may as well have been a battering ram to the fortified door the drugs had built around my heart. In one easy hit, she had obliterated the wood and smashed through.
“You see nothing,” I hissed. But even as I focused on her protected gaze, I could see that she could. Like she was holding a giant magnifying glass into my fucking blackened soul. Saffie didn’t move a muscle as my words washed over her. But her gaze never moved from my chest, lodged into my heart… I see you… I see you…
I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want her, especially her, to see the fucking mess I’d become.
I laughed in her face, needing to chase her away. Needing her to get the fuck out of my poisoned grip and to run far, far away. Far fucking away from all this shit, to a better life. One where she didn’t have to hide indoors. One where she didn’t have to speak to pieces of shit like me. “I fucked that slut,” I told her and watched her guarded gaze shatter from the blow. My stomach twisted at the sight, but I kept on going. “I fucked her that night.” I shrugged. “I’ve fucked a lot more since.” I leaned forward. “Is that what you see, Saff? Is that what you fucking see in me?”
I sat back in my chair, praying like fuck that she’d just leave. The numbness was wearing off. I needed it to stay. Saffie stayed silent for so long, I thought she’d had enough, but then, “I see someone who is lost, someone who is hurting. You are in incredible pain.” My breath fucking hitched. Saffie placed her feet on the ground and stood. I looked at her, thinking that ‘angel’ was the perfect description of her. “I see it in you, because I have it in me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I argued. “Nothing at all.” I spread my arms wide. “I’m evil, Saffie. I kill people. I’m a motherfucking Cade. I have the devil’s fire running through my blood. You’re practically a mute who couldn’t even hack a few days of school, acting like a fucking martyr to try and save me. You’re wasting your time. We are nothing fucking alike. And I don’t need saving.”
“We all need saving, Asher. We simply must first be ready to embrace it. Salvation awaits us all.”
“Really? You’re saved, Saffie? You’re a fucking disaster. Fix yourself before you put your unwanted attention toward me.”
I fought back the urge to drop to my fucking knees and beg her forgiveness. I was intentionally hurting a fucking angel. I could see it on her face. I’d hurt one of the only people in the world who seemed to care. But I stayed where I was. I wouldn’t drag her down with me. She was meant to stand high in the sky, not down in the dirt with me.
Saffie’s eyes dropped to the ground, and then they slowly lifted. She walked carefully toward me, each step looking like she was floating on a fucking cloud. I saw her hand lift. It was trembling as it began to close in on my face. I held my fucking breath, waiting for the expected slap. I deserved it. Instead, her palm kissed my cheek and I fucking sank into her warmth. Fuck the drugs in my veins. The feel of her touch took every bit of the heroin away and replaced it with light.