Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“You know how the only thing getting me through this terrible heartache your father has caused is by giving you a hard time?”
“Yeah?”
I hold my phone out, shoving it directly between Chloe and Zephyr. “Have I ever shown you the photo of me winning my state swim meet in high school?”
“What?” his gaze snaps between my phone and the road before he eventually yanks it out of my hand and looks at the image properly. “You can swim?”
“Oh yeah,” I say with a beaming smile as the car rolls to a stop outside my apartment complex. I scootch to the edge and open the door before climbing out. “Quite spectacularly, actually. I was the sole reason my school made it to state. I was quite the superstar after that win.”
I all but prance around the car as I step up to the driver’s door and lean in through the open window, snatching my phone right out of Zephyr’s hand.
“You’re dead to me,” Zeph says in a bland tone, more than realizing that I could have easily gotten my ass back to the shore on my own, and that all that flailing around and almost drowning was nothing but an award-winning show put on for his sole benefit. But hell, if he wants to mess with me, then he should know that I always get even. No matter what.
I grin right back at him. “Love you, too,” I say, before glancing past him to Chloe. “You coming home tonight, or can I go back to being a full-time slob on the couch?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. Not sure yet, but I’ll let you know.”
“Okay,” I say, reaching back into the backseat and grabbing my bag of soggy clothes. “I’ll deny it if anyone asks, but I’m glad you dragged me along to this. A whole twenty-four hours of teasing Zeph really helped put me back on track.”
“I thought it might,” Chloe says.
I offer her a small wave before stepping back onto the sidewalk, and as I make my way up to the main entrance of my apartment complex, I listen to Zeph’s car pull away.
I had a great time last night, but I definitely drank a bit too much—something that’s becoming increasingly more popular in my world at the moment—and I can’t wait to crash. I can’t even recall what TV show I was pretending to binge, but whatever it was, it’s going to go on the second I get into my apartment. Then I’ll be ordering Chinese food and calling it a day. Hell, I might even shower and wash this lake water out of my hair.
Making my way up to my apartment, my feet drag, exhaustion quickly claiming me, yet as I reach my floor and peer down the hallway, a strange chill sweeps through my body.
“What the fuck?” I murmur to myself, seeing that my door has been kicked in.
My heart races, and as I creep toward my apartment, a strange nervousness begins to flutter through me. Have we been robbed?
With every step I take, my stomach sinks lower, and by the time I reach the broken door, my whole body is shaking. The door hasn’t just been kicked in; it was destroyed, literally splintered into a million pieces. Someone who is breaking in to steal my TV wouldn’t go to that kind of length. Sure, they’d break the door down, but the person who shattered this door did so with the type of anger that comes from personal experience, and apart from Zephyr, the only person I’ve intentionally pissed off lately is The Vag Destroyer.
My blood runs cold.
Was it really him? Because sure, I said some things to put him in his place, but I did so after he made comments about needing to teach me a lesson by raping me until I bled. Is that what he was here to do? But more than that, I thought he was just some asshole on the internet, but does he know where I live?
Fuck.
Peering into my apartment, I see the whole place has been ransacked. The entryway table lays on its side, and the glass bowl that kept all of mine and Chloe’s little knick-knacks has been shattered on the floor. The curtains were torn from the curtain rods, while our brand-new couch was slashed to pieces with a knife.
My hands shake as I grip my phone, trying to work out who to call. Chloe? Caesar? The cops? I don’t know.
Tears well in my eyes. I’m not one of those people who get super emotionally attached to a place. If I had to move tomorrow, it wouldn’t bother me, and yet seeing my home so thoroughly destroyed and all of my belongings smashed to pieces, I can’t help but feel gutted.
Glass crunches under my shoes as I move deeper into the apartment, my gaze sweeping through the wreckage. Chloe’s room mostly seems fine. Just her clothes tossed from her drawers, but my room looks like the devil was summoned inside of it. Everything is destroyed, right down to my mangled phone charger that someone snatched out of the wall and sliced with a knife.