Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
His body turns rock solid before he sighs, reaches for the handle, and leaves me in our honeymoon suite.
Alone and lonely.
Chapter Ten
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Lily
Three days have passed and I’m back in the safe house slash safe mansion slash pentagon.
Not long after our close and extremely awkward encounter, Nox came back into our room and advised me to pack my shit. I told him I had no shit to pack.
He responded with, “Great. Then you’re ready to go.”
I asked, “Go where?”
Holding my eyes, he replied softly, “Home.”
And somehow, I just knew he meant my home away from home.
In saying that, nine hours later, we were back. And it’s good to be home.
Is it weird that I feel like this is home?
No. I don’t think so. Not when we arrived back and Boo ran over to me, hugging the life out of me for a solid minute, stroking my hair like long lost sisters being reunited. Not when a seriously relieved looking Rock picked me up and swung me around, telling me, “Great to have you back, babe.”
Nox spoke to them both for a moment in whispers and riddles, and I knew better to ask about what happened the day the alarms went off.
Which brings us to now.
Three days later and completely Nox free. Again.
I have a feeling he’s avoiding me. Again. But I’ve been spending most of my time with Boo, and that makes me happy.
“Oh, you bitc- Motherfu- Shitballs!”
Boo chuckles, “Oh relax. It isn’t that bad.”
I scoff, “Yeah, right, you freakin’ harlot.”
Boo laughs. I cringe and whimper, “Oh God. You’re actually enjoying this.”
When she stops, she asks, “Your sister never tried this?”
Fisting the sheets, I reply through gritted teeth, “Oh, she tried. I karate chopped her ass.”
She says, “I don’t get it.” I open my eyes to find her looking down at me, “The whole you don’t have friends thing. You’re pretty cool, Deedee.”
Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I explain, “Well, Dad was always overprotective. Then it got worse. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere without him or Mom. I never really understood it.” Till now, I think.
“I mean, what’s the worst that could happen from me going to a sleepover?” I sigh, “Eventually, the little friends I had stopped asking me to come over and drifted away from me. My sister was always there for me, though. She had this way about her. I guess she still does. She’s always been popular, so no one questioned why she wasn’t coming out to parties and stuff. She’d just pass it off with ‘I’ve got a better offer’ or ‘Nah, it’s not really my thing’. Well, Terah got sick of Dad’s rules and started sneaking out and I- I didn’t. I’d stay at home with my book boyfriends and that was fine by me. Ow! Stop that!”
Plucking another stray hair, she pulls back and says, “Done.”
Standing, I walk over to the mirror and check my newly shaped eyebrows.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
I look back at her through the mirror and state, “So much pain for this? It doesn’t even look like you plucked anything.”
Lying back on the bed, she says, “Oh, it’s noticeable, alright. You’re lucky. You’ve been blessed with a great shape. You should see mine when I don’t pluck.” She lifts her head and looks at my reflection in the mirror. “Scary. I’d have a unibrow in the shape of the McDonald’s m.”
Turning around, I lean back on the dresser and ask, “Why do you even bother? You work with men, and I’m sure they don’t care that you pluck.”
She smiles slyly and bats her lashes, “Oh, but my man would.”
Eeek! Her man! Swoon.
Bouncing over to the bed wearing an annoyingly cheeky smile, I ask in a sing-song voice, “Oh, yeah? Who is he?”
Her answer shocks me so much my mouth gapes. “Rock.”
Leaning forward, I whisper-hiss, “No way!”
Chuckling, she replies, “Way, baby.”
My mouth hangs open and she laughs. I sputter, “B- b- but you guys act like you don’t even like each other.”
Nodding, she smiles sadly, “Technically, we aren’t allowed to see each other. It’s...” She actually lifts her hands and does slow quotation mark actions with her fingers, “…fraternizing. Nox knows, but he said he can’t really do anything about it unless it affects our work, which I would never let happen anyways. And what with Rock and Nox being best friends, I think Nox is actually happy to see that Rock’s got something good in this life.”
Confused by that last statement, I ask quietly, “What do you mean in this life?
Boo searches my face a while. She looks unsure before answering me quietly, “Babe, we don’t exist.”
Confused even more now, my brow furrows as I ask, “Come again?”
She lies back down with her arms resting behind her head. Looking up at the ceiling, she explains, “This thing - what we do - protection and elimination. We don’t work for anyone. We work for ourselves. I guess you could call it a made-up business. We all have titles within our sector, but the sector doesn’t actually exist. We’re all privately employed and we get paid a lot to do what we do. The condition of being employed this way is to be unseen, and our circle to be impenetrable. So everyone you’ve met here, they don’t have any form of real identification. Every document, ID card, and bank account we have is under a false name.” Turning her head to face me, she finishes with, “We don’t exist.”