Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
The girls behind us giggled. My soul fired up its imaginary laptop and opened Zillow in search of a suitable place to bury myself from shame.
“Are you seriously not going to tell me your name?” My voice came out hoarse. I cleared my throat. “Imagine if you really were my first kiss. I could be scarred for life. You might traumatize me. I’d never be able to trust another man again.”
Stoner Guy flung the metal bar open, striding down the line of carts. “Time’s up. Everybody out.”
The stranger smoothed my hair away from my face.
“You’ll survive,” he croaked.
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Don’t underestimate me. I know a whole fucking lot about people. Besides, I already told you, my name is Monster.”
“Now, that might be your nickname—” I started.
“Nicknames are more telling than birth names.”
I happened to agree. My father called my older brother, Cillian, Mo Orga, which meant “my golden” in Irish Gaelic, and my middle brother, Hunter, Ceann Beag, which meant “little one.”
He never nicknamed me anything.
My name meant vision, a dream. Perhaps that’s all I was to my father. Something that wasn’t real, tangible, or important. I was meant to be an idea. A pretty vessel for him to parade and exhibit.
A little daughter, pretty, prim, and proper, without the pressure of breeding me for some big role. To take over his company one day. To give him male heirs to continue his legacy. I was my mother’s gift from him, and I played my role, doting over her, fulfilling her every whim, and filling the hours he was away on business with shopping trips, doing each other’s hair, and more.
Now I was planning to go to med school so when I graduated, I could also take care of her physically. Jane Fitzpatrick always did detest visiting her doctors. She said they were judging her, misunderstanding her.
I couldn’t wait for the day I’d be qualified to replace her physician and check another box in the impossible wish list my parents had set out for me.
“I’m not afraid of monsters.” I squared my shoulders.
Pleased with my answer, he flicked my chin. “Maybe you’re one of us. You just said yourself you don’t know who you are.”
I tried to go after him. I wasn’t too proud to follow him around, ask him what he meant. But he was quicker, sliding out of the cart quickly, and with the feral grace of a tiger, he walked away.
He disappeared in the throng of swirling lights and bodies, evaporating into thin air, as monsters did.
I came here to drown.
Now, I could hardly breathe.
Three hours later, I was still buzzing with adrenaline and pain. I tried all the rides. Ate too much candy. Drank root beer on a bench and people-watched. The distraction did not dull the pain. I continued to play the moment I found out she was dead over and over again in my head like I was trying to punish myself for … what? Not stopping it? Not getting there sooner?
There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Wasn’t there? She asked you for help. You never gave it to her.
I looked for Monster all night, even when I didn’t mean to. My eyes wandered, scanning the lines and couples and throngs of people. I wondered if I’d made him up in my head. Everything about our encounter seemed unreal.
When I took a restroom break at the portable toilets, I noticed the back of the door was freshly engraved with words. Words that seemed intimately directed to my eyes.
Lust lingers, love stays.
Lust is impatient, love waits.
Lust burns, love warms.
Lust destroys, but love? Love kills.
S.A.B.
When the clock hit midnight, I gave up. I wasn’t going to find him.
My phone was blowing up, and I knew my parents were going to send a search unit if I didn’t come back home.
A missing seventeen-year-old girl was a non-issue if it had only been eight hours since you’d last seen her.
A missing seventeen-year-old oil heiress whose daddy was one of the richest men in the world sure was, though, and I had no doubt my family would raise a ruckus.
I was a Fitzpatrick, and Fitzpatricks should always be protected.
I glanced at my phone again.
Mother: I am getting increasingly worried. Just text me, please. I understand that you are upset, but you are upsetting us all by disappearing like this! I cannot get any sleep. You know how much I need my sleep.
Mother: Your father will be blaming me for this entire ordeal. I do hope this pleases you, Aisling. Getting me into trouble.
Oh, Merde. Put a lid on it, Mother.
Hunter: Da will have a heart attack, sis. Just sayin’ (more hugz from Cali).
Cillian: Stop being so emotional. She was the hired help.
Da: I am sorry for your loss, Ash. Please come home.
Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I made my way to Mom’s Volvo XC90. I was about to swing the door open, get inside, and gun it back to Avebury Court Manor, our house. That was when I heard it. A crunch that had nothing to do with my feet. My head snapped up in the darkness. Toward the edge of the parking lot, about three cars down from my vehicle, was a corner nestled between a thick line of trees leading to the woods by the highway. Secluded and dark.