Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
And of course she has. Of course she does.
A few seconds later we’re in a full-on fuckin’ match in the middle of the alley and she’s swinging up in a flying armbar. The next thing I know her foot is against my neck, I’m on the ground—rolling—and she’s got my arm between her legs. All she has to do is wait for my roll to complete, lean back, and lock my elbow and this whole fight is done. But I don’t let her get that far.
I’ve got like a hundred pounds on this girl. So as I’m rolling, I throw my weight in that direction, taking her with me. She rolls all the way over and I’m on top, holding both her wrists and leaning down in to her face to growl back. “If you want to fight, we fight inside. We don’t fight in the alley like—”
Her knees come up behind me and an ankle is pressed against my throat. She gives my neck one squeeze with her legs, and I gasp, letting go of her hands. Then I get a two-footed kick to my chest that sends me reeling backwards and gives her enough time to get up and start running.
I get up too. “What the fuck!” I yell it loud. And I run after her.
She turns left at the end of the alley, onto Ocean, running straight down the middle of the street. It’s early, so there aren’t many people about, but there are a few, and some cars on Ocean. A little blue convertible is coming right at her. It honks, the driver yelling something. And that fucking girl jumps right onto the hood, leaps over the fucking front seat, lands on the trunk, jumps down, and keeps going.
I laugh as I do the same, looking down at the driver’s stunned face as I leap over him. When I land and find her again, she’s leaping over a barrier blocking Ocean from vehicle traffic.
I follow. I don’t even know why I follow. There’s something wrong with this girl. I should just turn her back over to Maart and forget the whole thing.
But it’s because there’s something wrong with her that I don’t do that.
I don’t have a camp. I don’t have anyone. And really, Davis and Wade don’t count because they have no idea. No fucking idea what it’s like to be me.
But this girl here, she does.
So I run and I follow.
I could catch her. I know I could. She’s running hard now—not the way she was last night, but she’s clearly out of shape.
I don’t catch her. I let her stay in front of me. I let her take me with her.
She weaves her way over to Washington, heading south, and then makes a right on Sixth. By the time I make that same right, she’s pulling open a gate to a small condo complex.
When I get to the gate, which is now closed, I find her standing on the front steps in front of a turquoise door. She’s breathing hard. Crying, I think. And I don’t understand any of this.
“Stop.” Her voice is small and weak. And it doesn’t help that she can barely breathe from the mile-long sprint.
Even I’m breathing hard. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
“Just go away. Forget you ever saw me.”
“No.” I kinda laugh. “That’s not even possible—it’s not gonna happen. Why did you attack me? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. And now you’re locked out. Go away and don’t come back!”
I reach up for the pointy tips of the wrought-iron fence in front of me, jump, and swing my whole body over. She watches this with her mouth open.
I laugh again. “Come on, Irina. That fence is nothing.”
She narrows her eyes again. Like I’m here to brawl with her and I just threw down a challenge.
She’s crazy. Clearly crazy.
I amend my statement. “That fence is nothing to people like us.”
Her mouth closes, her eyes widen a little, and she lets out a breath. Then she keys in the code to her door—which I memorize—opens it, walks through, and… leaves the door open.
I look behind me for some reason, like I’m checking to see if anyone’s watching. I’m not. I’m just buying time, trying to decide what I should do.
“Clearly crazy.” But this time I’m talking about me.
Because I follow her inside.
Her place is tiny. One room, that’s it. As soon as I step in, the bathroom is on my left. I clock it, but keep walking forward. Two steps later I’m passing the kitchen on my right. I mean, if you can call it a kitchen. It’s galley-style and about six feet long. There’s a cooktop and a sink, but no oven. On the far side is a bar countertop, and past that is where Irina is. She’s got a pillow to her chest. She turns away from me, kneeling down, placing the pillow on the bare tile floor, and then… then she presses her face into it and she screams.