Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
“Where’d you find this place,” Rhamp asked as he brought in the last of the duffles from the Range Rover. “Logs’R’Us?”
Because of the amount of munitions and ammunitions they had to transport, they’d driven over in one of Shuli’s fleet of cars, and L.W. had been cool with being in the back. He’d spent the half hour or so staring out the window.
And creating from the blurriness what the side of the road looked like: The wintry blankets of snow. The skeletal trees. The occasional human house.
His eyes were only giving him outlines and color blocks, flashes of texture, and hints of details. The lack of acuity made him panic if he thought too much about it, a strange sense of being trapped when he wasn’t restrained at all choking him. To combat the anxiety, he’d distracted himself by using his mind to fill in the blanks.
He was doing that mental coloring book shit now.
As he went from room to room and then found a hall to another wing of the place, he wanted to blame his bad vision on that flash. Like if he’d only avoided whatever the hell it was, then everything would have stayed nice and goddamn normal.
That was a fucking lie, though. He’d been inching toward this destination and fighting it like hell for a while now. And the blindness was only part of the sense that some kind of countdown was happening, that some kind of inevitable tick-tock of fate was stalking him.
“—and then we can head out into the field.”
“Yeah, I’m down.”
Rhamp and Shuli were talking by the front door, their muffled voices so familiar, they’d become a kind of family he wasn’t interested in having.
He didn’t even want the family he had.
On that note, if he could get away from this navel-gazing bullshit, that’d be great.
“This crib is mine,” he called over his shoulder.
“Whatever you want,” Shuli returned from the distance.
L.W. went over and sat on the bed. There was a red and black wool blanket spread across the foot of the thick mattress, and as he put his palm on it, he felt the scratchy softness. Then he looked over to the lamp on the little table by all the pillows, and he realized he hadn’t turned it on. He wasn’t going to. His eyes weren’t keener in the dark. They were just getting more and more sensitive to light.
Footsteps came down the hall, and going by the Gucci cologne, he knew who it was, and you know, when you were a houseguest, it was considered in bad taste to tell your host to go fuck themselves. Especially when they hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
“I’m coming,” he said as Shuli appeared in the jambs, a dark shape backlit by the hall light.
“Just checking,” the fighter said. “But if you want to chill here, that’s cool.”
“No.” He frowned at the wall of logs and mortar next to him. “This is a nice place, by the way.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that other house of yours was a total dump.” As Shuli let a crack of laughter fly, L.W. found himself smiling a little. “Too bright, and the art was awful.”
“I thought you liked the Rothkos.”
“I knew what they were. That’s different.”
“Ah—”
“We got company, boys.”
Down at the other end of the place, Rhamp’s voice rippled out, and L.W.’s nose turned his head. The instant he took a deep breath, it was like every cell in his body came alive.
“What the fuck is Bitty doing here?” he demanded as he punched to his feet. “Did you invite her?”
“I just told her where we’d moved to.”
“Can’t you keep your mouth shut about anything?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” His host muttered a curse. “Then again, considering what we’re doing on a nightly basis in the field, that’s a rhetorical I shouldn’t dignify with an answer.”
“I don’t understand why anybody needs to know anything.”
“And I’m not asking you for your opinion.” Shuli pivoted on his shitkicker. “If you don’t want to see her, stay here and sulk.”
“I’m not sulking,” L.W. shot back.
“Fine, linger in your brooding darkness. How ’bout that.”
Left to his own morose devices, L.W. glared at the floorboards. And listened to the pattern of talk redouble as Bitty greeted Mr. News Flash.
Planting his hands on his hips, he closed his useless eyes. Rhage’s adopted daughter was his fucking Kryptonite, but more than that, she couldn’t stand him and for very good reason. So yes, he was going to stay the fuck here.
“And I’m not fucking brooding.”
Fuck.
* * *
Following a very, very nice break with his shellan at the training center, V dematerialized south and east and re-formed in the Audience House’s plowed driveway. With a whistle under his breath and a spring in his goddamn shitkickers, he swung through the security checks at the back, and as he stepped out into the kitchen, Rhage twisted around like he’d been caught stealing. Then again, the brother had a cherry Danish in his mouth, and one in each hand.