Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 100563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Cal stiffened beside me. “You’re sending her to the mainland?”
I tensed, doing my best to stop my heart from leaping from my mouth. “She’s going home. I’m done.”
His silence was as damning as his sarcastic ‘sir’.
My goddess island came into view, the helicopter sank, and I gathered up all the masks that Eleanor had stripped from me with bloody, gory hands, and put them back on...one lie at a time.
Chapter Two
“STOP STRESSING, JINX. I’m sure he’ll be back soon, and everything will be fine.”
I ceased shredding the napkin from our untouched dinner, eyeing Jealousy. “He should have returned by now.”
Unless what he’s dealing with is so, so much worse than I feared.
I’d had no appetite all day, my stomach a riot of serrated knots whenever I thought of Sully and whatever carnage he’d faced.
Are those animals okay?
I couldn’t shed the awful, awful feeling that we were over.
That Sully would be reminded of far too many things.
That he’d push me away before I could solidify just how important this was.
We were.
Yes, disaster had come.
And yes, things would need to be addressed.
But...unless he trusted me to have his back, trusted that I would be strong enough to put up with his stony silences born from grief and his explosive temper birthed from rage, then I had the tear-evoking sensation that my time here was borrowed.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I had a cut there now. A cut that bled each time I nibbled because physical pain was the only distraction that worked against my emotional pain.
God, Sully.
His creatures...
My heart panged, filling me with fear all over again.
Was he okay?
What had he seen?
What nightmares now existed in that perfect, wonderful sanctuary?
I rubbed at the emptiness in my chest, agony swift and sharp cutting me right down the middle.
How many lives have been lost?
What sort of state will he be in when he finally returns?
Would he let me touch him? Soothe him? Hug him?
Would he share his exhaustion and emotional grief...or would he want nothing to do with me?
Once again, that sickening feeling that Sully would push me away rose with acidic bile. We’d admitted we were in love with each other, but that was just the tip of a very big iceberg to melt.
Right now, love was an idea, a promise, a word.
It could be snatched away as quickly as we’d conjured it.
Falling in love was the painful part.
It required the systematic stripping of who you were as an individual, a raw newness, and a terrifying look in the mirror that forced you to realise that the person you thought you were—the person you’d grown into on your own, without interference of another—wasn’t who you were, after all.
The lies we’d fed ourselves. The tricks we’d used to deceive. The motives and methods to get through life were suddenly obsolete in the face of the one person who transcended all other people.
I supposed my young age permitted me to accept my evolution easily. I allowed the metamorphism to flow from girl to goddess to woman in love with a monster because I’d never truly grown to know myself. My youth kept me pliant for my truth.
But Sully...
He hadn’t accepted me as easily. He had eleven years on me. That was eleven more years to build up his walls, smash down his bridges, and create an illusion that wasn’t Euphoria-given but entirely of his own creation.
He saw himself as cruel and unyielding, severe and grim.
I saw him as gentle and forgiving, strict and generous.
Dark and light. Light and dark.
Two elements that cancelled each other out.
Just as he’ll cancel me out if that darkness has smothered him again.
My shoulders rolled as I pushed away my untouched dinner.
Jealousy gave me a sad smile, her eyes glowing with sympathetic friendship. “It will be okay. It has to be. It’s Sully.”
I nodded and kept my fears quiet.
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. Skittles chirped from my shoulder, eyeballing Jealousy’s right to touch me. I got her possessiveness. I felt the same way about Skittles.
Jealousy patted my knuckles. “Don’t just nod. Believe it.”
I forced a smile. I’d never been one for casual touch between girls. I’d returned a hug if a school friend gave one, but I wasn’t the instigator. However, Jealousy’s touch was genuine and fierce; a bond that’d sprung swiftly but seemed solid.
I sighed, my belly once again squeezing with pain. My friendship with Jealousy was easier than my love with Sully.
I trusted that Jealousy would talk to me if I ever upset her. That we’d have an open dialogue if things got hard.
Sully...I think he’ll act first, then regret.
He won’t trust in me.
Trust...
Sully’s hardest-earned gift.
I’d proven that I was trustworthy. That it was him I loved—the soul that resided in his handsome form—and not the pretty packaging he seemed to have contempt for.