Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
At my nod that I’m okay, Oni rounds the car with a curious but wary look thrown at Khalil and Zeke and then climbs inside the car.
“I’m sorry,” I say once it’s just the three of us.
“What did we do?” Zeke says as a wild look enters his eyes, and he reaches up to grip his sweat-slicked hair with both hands. “What did we do? What did we do?”
For a moment I could easily mistake him for Seth, but the alter hasn’t been awake since the night of the fire. He won’t wake, and I think I’m the reason why. Seth’s heart just barely finished mending when I unwittingly broke it all over again by asking for Bane.
Maybe I’m not built to love.
It’s a flaw that I can’t blame my uncle for. No, this one has me written all over it.
“You didn’t do anything, Zeke. It’s what I have to do.”
“We can do it together. Please. Don’t go. Not now.”
“Nah. Don’t beg her,” Khalil says with hard eyes filling with tears trained on me. “If the bitch wants to go, let her go.”
Even though he’s already looking like he’s regretting those words, something shatters inside of me at hearing them.
“Goodbye.” Head down, I step toward the car and Zeke explodes.
“You promised!” I hear him shout as I climb inside. I’m immediately taken aback by the lavish interior. “You said you wanted to bleed!” Khalil grabs Zeke when he tries to run after me, and I force myself to close the door. I don’t look back, but I can see their reflections in the glass of the hospital windows. It’s taking all of Khalil’s might to hold Zeke back as he wrestles to get free. The car jolts forward, and I hear Zeke’s heart-wrenching scream once more as I leave. “YOU PROMISED!”
Those two words clang around inside my mind, heart, and soul the entire drive to the airport, and they don’t leave me as I climb the steps onto the private plane that ferries me back to reality.
AURELIA GEORGE…ALIVE? THE MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD QUEEN OF POP GETS FLAGGED AT IMMIGRATION
33 mins ago
By Hannah Leigh | America’s Daily News
While attempting to enter the United States, celebrity singer Aurelia (27) was waylaid by an alarming lack of passport. Though no one can deny her identity—hello, she’s the Aurelia George—it seems to have caused quite the kerfuffle at Canadian customs when the international superstar, who went missing earlier this year, arrived at a private airfield in Vancouver without a scratch. You might recall the devastating plane crash that claimed the lives of seven and critically injured one—her head of security, Tyler Westbrook. Though one cannot help but give thanks that the rising legend is alive and well, it does leave everyone scratching their heads and asking one very important question. Where exactly has she been all this time?
AURELIA
The news that I’m alive breaks before the plane lands in Portland.
And yet, all I can think about when I step off the plane is how different the air smells. I don’t know why it’s the first thing I notice, but I try not to fixate on the differences as I’m quickly ushered into an SUV with tinted windows under the cover of several umbrellas.
It isn’t raining. The umbrellas are to shield me from anyone with a powerful enough telephoto lens to capture me from outside the private airfield.
No one is supposed to know I’m alive yet, but that plan quickly went to shit hours ago once I found myself seated in front of a slack-jawed immigration officer who stared at me like he’d seen a ghost. Valid. When he stumbled to ask for my passport, I remembered that I no longer have one.
But Oni and her assistant were on it, having already filed the necessary paperwork and skipped past the red tape for a limited passport. By the time we landed in Portland an hour and a half later, I’m once again making headline news.
It’s only a matter of time before someone lands a picture of me to confirm, which is the reason for the long line of twenty identical black vehicles as we leave the airport.
Even though I’m staying local, the car ride is a long one since the driver was given explicit instructions to loop around several times to shake any tails. It doesn’t help that I have no idea where I’m going.
Oni hadn’t been too forthcoming with the details, and I hadn’t cared enough to ask, but by the time we finally arrive at wherever I’m going to be hiding out, I’m more than a little curious. Especially when I look out the window and get an eyeful of the towering spires reaching toward the moon, the elaborate tracery in the arched windows, and the decorative masonry draped with vines. The Gothic-style abode is more castle than house.