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)
“What did ya do?”
Do I tell him? I want to tell him. Not really, specifically, him. Just… someone. I want one person on this fucking planet to understand me. And Eason ‘Dead Eyes’ Malone is all I’ve got because I can’t tell Nandy any of this shit. She will not understand. But mostly, I don’t want her to understand. I don’t want her to fall asleep at night knowing that the evil is real.
My truth will change her and I don’t want to do that.
“How about this?” Eason stands up. “Let’s go for a walk.” He comes around the table to me and pulls my chair back, and when I stand up, he takes my hand, leading me out the back entrance.
I’m still wiping my cheeks, looking over my shoulder at the restaurant. “Shouldn’t I say goodbye?”
Eason doesn’t answer me. Just sighs, tugging me so I have to catch up with him, and then he drops my hand as I fall in step.
We end up at the beach and just the sound and smell of it makes me feel both sad and relieved at the same time. We don’t go to the pier. Eason just picks a spot of sand about twenty feet from the surf and we sit. He takes off his shirt, wads it up into a ball, and then lies back and uses it for a pillow.
He even closes his eyes.
I study him for a moment. All those tattoos. I might not have any, but I’ve seen my share of tattooed men. I’ve seen them done too. Sergey, Lilith, Ivano, and Kioshi all had tattoos. They were the oldest of us in the camp, the only adult fighters Cort had left after two decades of kids.
Rainer started tattooing them after they turned sixteen. They were all getting ready to enter the Ring of Fire. Four fighters from the same camp. This would’ve been an incredible feat for both Cort and Udulf.
Udulf would’ve lost Cort after he bought his freedom, but Cort didn’t have the money to pay for all of us. Lilith, Ivano, Kioshi, and Sergey would’ve stayed. They each had one more fight—just one more—and then they would’ve been allowed in the Ring and Udulf would’ve been so much richer, not to mention alive, if he had just let Cort, Maart, Rainer, and Evard leave and been satisfied with what he had left.
Lilith would’ve been the first girl ever to make it to the Ring. She was so close. She did a few professional fights for Cort after the great escape, but only to help pay for things like food, and supplies, and Ainsey’s healthcare. She’s married now. Three kids. I hadn’t seen Lilith for years, even before I left, but the last time was right after her first baby girl was born. Lilith came to the village to show her off and I couldn’t help thinking how lucky that girl was. Her mom would kill anyone who tried to hurt her. Not everyone gets a mom like that. And she would never know what it’s like to fight for her life right out of pre-school.
“Like what you see?”
I realize I’ve been staring at Eason while all these thoughts were running through my head. He’s still lying back on the sand, but he’s got one eye open, looking at me.
I just sigh and lie back next to him, putting my hands behind my head the same way he did. It’s not yet dark, but it’s getting there. We’re on the wrong side of the island to see the real sunset, but there is a residual one—a reflection on the clouds, turning them a deep red—which is almost as nice. This is always how it’s been for me growing up on the Atlantic. So I like it.
I turn my head and find Eason still looking at me with that one eye. “What?”
“Ya didn’t answer my question.”
I take in his body from this angle now, all those cut muscles along his ribs. Then I look him straight on. “You’re handsome. No one is gonna say otherwise. But I’ve been this close to a hundred bodies just like yours.”
He laughs, and it reaches all the way up to his eyes. “I bet you have. So why are you so scared of us?”
“I’m not.”
“Then what is it? Intimacy?”
I sigh and shake my head. Then resume looking at the sky.
“It’s Maart. You liked him. More than you should’ve. He blew ya off, ya took it personal, and ya left. How close am I?”
“Well.” That word comes out on a long breath. “Nailed it.”
He laughs.
And so do I. I even turn my head to look at him again. “It was stupid. I did act like a child. And then I just took off. I mean—” I turn on my side and prop myself up with my elbow, staring at him for a moment before continuing. “I had been planning it.”