Total pages in book: 195
Estimated words: 185573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 928(@200wpm)___ 742(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 185573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 928(@200wpm)___ 742(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
“They locked her up?” Disbelief bleeds through my voice.
“It was for her own safety, Madden,” Mom replies as if I’m the unreasonable one. “We just wanted her to get well, and she’s doing much better now. They have her on medication, and she’s out of the facility. But I think she still has a lot of growing up to do, and Stefan suggested she find something to focus on while Adam handles the transition. Bianca found a culinary school in New York she wanted to attend. Of course, Adam was having a conniption fit over it. He’s so in love with that girl he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight for a minute. He and Stefan butted heads over the whole ordeal for months, but we finally came to an agreement. He flies up to see her every couple of weeks.”
“She’s there alone?” I frown, trying to imagine Bianca living by herself in New York.
“She has family there,” Mom says. “An aunt and some cousins. She’s staying with them while she attends school.”
“What about the wedding?” I bite out.
“They’re still young and have plenty of time for all that,” Mom explains with a smile in her voice. “Bianca wants to feel like she’s accomplished something before she becomes a full-time wife and mother, and I support that decision.”
Her words leave a sour taste in my mouth, and I wish I’d never asked.
“I should get some sleep,” I tell her.
“Oh yes, of course. I’ll let you go then. You take care, Madden.”
Chapter 47
Lyric
Madden left early this afternoon, and he’s been gone for hours. This time, he didn’t arrange for Birdie to keep an eye on me, and I’m not sure if it’s because he trusts me or because she’s just busy. Regardless, I figure out the reason after I test all the doors and windows out of curiosity. There isn’t a need for a babysitter unless I can find a way to shatter what I’m assuming is reinforced glass and a very heavy front door.
Not that I really want to.
I wander through every room, picking apart Madden’s life while I think about Eden, wondering what she’s doing down at the clubhouse. I want to know if she’s tried to escape since I last saw her, and she told me she was hell-bent on it. I can only imagine what she’d say if she saw me now. She’d be tearing into me for not trying everything I could to get out of here. But when I think about the way we lived on the streets, it seems like another lifetime ago.
It’s the strangest thing to have no concept of who you are but to have a place feel like home. Madden feels like he could be my home. I hate myself for admitting that because I know he’s still in love with Bianca. It will always be her. It has always been her, and I know I can’t change that.
In a daze, I find myself drawn back to his bedroom, staring at the photos of her on his wall. My fingers move over the pictures, studying every detail of her face. The curvature of her eyebrows. Her smile. Her teeth. Her lips. In some ways, it does feel like I’m staring at my reflection in a mirror. She may look like me, but in my mind, she feels more like an enemy and less like someone I forgot.
I don’t know her, but without a doubt, I hate her. I’m jealous of what she had with Madden and the hold she still has on him now. There’s a burning need inside me to extinguish that love, to make him forget her so I can have him to myself.
I cover her face with my palm as if that could make her disappear. This torment inside me is agony. I’m confused, and hurt, and I’m terrified he’ll never let her go. I already know he won’t let me go, and he can’t have us both.
I shake off those thoughts and force myself to walk down the hall and focus on something else. To pass the time, I snoop through all of Madden’s things, touching them as if I can leave my mark on them. When I reach the stereo system, I mess around with the remote until I find a playlist for an album from Last Rite.
For the next few minutes, I stand there, listening to Madden’s haunting voice as he sings. I don’t remember hearing the lyrics to “Don’t Call Me a Hero” before, but somehow, I know them. They talk about his time in combat. The friends he lost, and how he wishes fate had called for him instead. The imagery of his words is so powerful it overwhelms me as I try to imagine what that must have been like.