Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Or… you could ride the magic carpet of funny-for-no-damned-reason.
With someone who was in the same shitty situation you were.
* * *
When their laughter finally dimmed, Nate brushed at his face and tried to catch his breath as he glanced over at the female who was next to him in the snow. Nalla’s cheeks were bright red and her hair was smudged this way and that out of her ponytail and her lips were rosy and smiling. She looked younger. Or maybe the dark humor just erased the sorrow that he hadn’t noticed lurking behind her eyes until it was gone.
She was so strong, she hid her unhappiness well, but she was grieving for something.
Just like he was.
As she exhaled and clearly tried to pull it together, he reached up to her face and moved a strand of hair out of her eye.
All of a sudden, everything got serious. To the point where he didn’t feel the cold anymore. Or the pain… outside of him—or inside.
“You’re beautiful when you laugh.” Now he touched her cheek even though there wasn’t anything to give him an excuse to. “And you were s-s-s-saying my name. Over and over a-a-again.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You’re l-l-l-lying.”
She took a deep breath. “Your teeth are chattering.”
“Are they? I d-d-didn’t notice. You kind of m-m-m-make me forget things… that hurt.”
Nalla blinked like she was clearing tears out of those uncanny yellow eyes of hers. “Can I please get you inside?”
“I’m not d-d-d-dying.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She put her hand in his. “Dying isn’t the only measure. You ever hear about that thing called quality of life.”
“Read about it s-s-somewhere. And I c-c-can walk.”
She stood up, and before he could tell her no, stop, he didn’t need the help—or d-d-d-d-didn’t n-n-n-n-need h-h-h-h-help, as was the case—she reached down and pulled him to his unsteady feet. Throwing his arm across her shoulders, she grabbed his waist and they were off, hobbling through the snowy meadow.
As the wind swirled around them, he glanced back at how far they’d come—how far she’d carried him. “You d-d-don’t give up, do you.”
“No, I don’t.”
On that note, he concentrated on not falling over and taking her with him.
“We’re going in through the garage’s back door,” she said as they got within range of the farmhouse. “And up the stairs by the mudroom. Group will have just started. No one will see us.”
The last thing he wanted to do was go back inside that house. But what choice did he have? If he got a couple of hours of rest, he’d be healed up enough to dematerialize off the property—and just as he was coming to the conclusion that he’d cross the Arctic Circle with her if she asked, they arrived at the garage and she got them in quick by punching a code on a keypad. The rear stairs were a fucking bitch, and even though he wouldn’t have admitted it if asked, there was no way he’d have made it down the hall to the bedroom she picked for him without her support.
“Here we go,” she said as she closed them in together.
He let a little momentum and a lot of gravity take him over to the bed and he sprawled on the thing face-first—and that was when he scented her. Burrowing his face into the pillows, he breathed in deep and felt a primal thrill that she’d brought him to where she’d slept.
“Let me help you get your… um, clothes off?”
His eyebrows popped even as his puss stayed in her pillow. Then he turned his head and looked at her around his burned-ass shoulder.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said in a deep voice.
Nalla crossed her arms over her chest in that way she did, with her eyes sparkling and her chin kicking up. “And I thought you said now wasn’t a good time for you.”
“Considering you just carried me through the woods and that damn meadow? Looks like I’ve changed my mind.”
The fact that it was only for tonight was something he kept to himself. But not because he was being a shithead.
The idea of never hearing that laugh of hers again depressed the ever-living shit out of him and he didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Twenty miles to the south and west, Zsadist was back in Caldie’s Financial District, stalking Market Street the same way he’d played promenade on the night before. No Tesla. No cop-bots getting shot. Nothing to fix at the moment, and no dogfight with a first-degree relative.
But what was the old saying? The night was still young. Who the fuck knew what was coming next.
As he jumped off the curb and cut across the opening of an alley, he was glad Nalla was still out at Luchas House. V had provided an update thanks to the security cameras there, and as good news went, he supposed it was better than almost everything that had been reported yesterday.