Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
"For now, yeah. Finch," he offered, though wisely didn't extend his hand, didn't come close. Men tended not to do stupid shit like that when you were holding a weapon sharp enough to sever a limb without much effort. "You got a name?"
"Not that you need to know."
Another of those devilish smirks.
"Fair enough. Well, you can rest easy tonight knowing you got a real devil one room away."
"Finch, I have a real devil living right in my skin. But it's nice to know the neighbors."
With that, I shut myself inside, realizing that in the course of an hour, I had spoken more words than I had likely spoken over the past month. Six months.
My throat actually felt scratchy.
Closing myself behind the door, locking it to humor Vance, I dropped down on the couch, head spinning.
Things had been so simple for so long.
Train, eat, sleep, research.
When I had trained and researched enough, I followed through on the mission.
That was it.
That was all I had to think about, all I had to digest on a daily basis.
I overestimated my ability to handle my reintroduction into polite society. I was pretty sure I had been as impolite as possible.
I was trying not to be too hard on myself. I hadn't needed things like pleasantries in ages. In fact, the harsher I was, the better it worked out for me.
It was something I needed to work on, clearly. And it seemed like I had about five days to do it. Before my parents got home. Before everyone would know I was back. Before everyone would want to talk to me.
I couldn't be snapping at them all the time.
They didn't deserve that.
I wasn't the Ferryn they knew and loved anymore. But maybe I could play her. For a while. Maybe I could give them what they needed. Then get back to my mission.
I owed them that.
The face of the girl they had raised.
My father, well, I was pretty sure he could handle this new me, could understand what life could do to a person.
But my mother? My mother may have suffered more than I ever realized when I was growing up, but she had stayed sweet, generous, loving through it all. She had a strength I clearly had not inherited.
She wouldn't get it.
She would try to.
She would love me regardless.
But there would be a part of her aching for her little girl.
I had to give her that. For all I had put her through over the years.
I wasn't sure how I would manage it, but I had a feeling a good start was with coffee with cream and sugar, and pickles, and crunchy cheese puffs, and Devil Dogs.
And maybe being less of a dick to Vance.
Really, he'd been nothing but good to me.
Then.
And now.
Kicking out of my boots, I climbed off the couch, moving over toward the record player sitting on a TV dinner stand in the corner, a moving box full of old records below it.
Music had once been a huge part of my life. I'd sat endlessly listening to everything I could get my hands on, widely discussing the merits and pitfalls of each genre, whether bands deserved the recognition they'd gotten or not.
I hadn't heard music in almost a decade. Sure, there had been caught snippets from passing cars, but mostly pop crap, mostly soulless words sang over electronic instruments.
I hadn't heard real music in so long.
Holden liked—no, needed—silence.
And I simply never sought it out.
Maybe a part of me was worried it was something too deeply steeped in who I had been, that clinging to it would make it impossible to change the way I knew I would need to.
My hands flipped through old, familiar favorites, making me wonder if they were favorites because Vance and I had the same taste or because I modeled my taste after his. It wasn't so far-fetched an idea. Young girls bent themselves into the shapes men most desired of them all the time. Sometimes so much so that they no longer recognized themselves anymore.
I liked to believe I was too headstrong for that, but now with everything being a time-soaked memory, I couldn't be certain.
Somehow, though, I was very, very certain about what I wanted to listen to when my hands found a record I had never seen before.
One belonging to Vance's band.
Turning it over, the date was the year I ran away. But none of the tracks had names of the songs I knew they had been working on.
Curious, eager, I slipped it out of its sleeve, putting it in the player, dropping the needle.
I think I ran through the whole album twice before I finally heard a bike rumbling down the road, snapping me out of the album that was really just seemingly one long story.
My story.
It was my story.
It started with a track called Young Girl all about the younger version of me being infatuated with an older guy who knew she was too young. It was a sweet, slow song, almost a ballad. Or as close to a ballad as a rock band could get.