AllFreeNovel
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So much drama. I love it.
“So…” She gathers her hair into a fluffy ball and lies back on it like a pillow. “You showed me the sauna. What else do you do for fun?”
“We fight.” Leo spears me with a glare that promises a meeting with his fists later.
I can hold my own. Last time, I blackened both of his eyes.
Kody is inarguably the cruelest motherfucker north of the Arctic Circle, but he has incredible self-control. As long as he keeps to himself.
Leo’s just an asshole. He doesn’t even try to rein it in. Denver doesn’t blame us for behaving like animals. He knows our secrets. Hell, he’s the reason for them.
“Why do you fight?” she asks.
“Because we want to kill each other.” Leo drops his head back, closing his eyes.
“But you’re family.”
“Exactly.” I sigh. “Always trying to murder one another.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aw.” Tilting my head, I rest it on my hand. “You don’t have siblings.”
“No.”
“I’ll be your brother. With benefits.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Leo cuts his cockblocker eyes at me.
“I’m with Leo on this,” she says. “No benefits.”
“Lame.” I relight my smoke.
“You’re smart.” Easing up on her elbow, she flicks her gaze between us. “Your vocabulary and pop culture references and breadth of knowledge about…basically everything is surprising for…”
“A family of hicks living off-grid?” Leo arches a brow.
“Yeah.”
“Denver homeschooled us.” Kicking an ankle over my knee, I stare at the rafters. “He’s smarter than the average bear and disgustingly loaded. So we have every modern book ever printed, every movie, TV show, and video game ever made. There’s a whole library in the cabin dedicated to learning.”
“You can learn anything?” Her face lights up.
“Everything.”
“Like flying a plane?”
“No.” Leo lifts his head. “Anything but that. There are no movies, books, or games that will give you an inkling of information about flying. He’s made sure of it.”
“You’ve tried.” She clutches her throat.
“Leave it alone.” He levels her with a look that sinks my stomach. “If you wreck that plane, we all die.”
“What about internet? Satellite phones or—?”
“We have no way to communicate with the outside world. Nor do we want to.”
“I do!”
“I should’ve killed you.” His jaw flexes.
“But your pesky loyalties…” She flashes her teeth.
“I’m getting over that.”
“Do it.”
“Stop.” I rub my pounding head. “Watching you two do foreplay is like watching a wasp sixty-nine an armored beetle.”
“Tell me about the others.” She ignores me, her eyes fixed on Leo. “The women who were abducted before me. How long did they last here? How did they die?”
“Who says there were others?” He sneers.
“Tell me about your mother.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“You’re lying.”
I don’t think he’s lying. But I can’t be sure. We don’t talk about the past.
With a frustrated exhale, she rolls to her back and shuts her eyes. Maybe she’ll let it go.
Except the mood’s already ruined, the air sulky and constipated, festering with sulfur as the minutes go by.
Thanks for that, Leo.
“When you’re little, no one is more beautiful than your mother.” She raises her arm above her and draws a squiggly circle in the air as if recreating the picture in her mind. “My mom had such a great smile. God, she was so incredibly stunning. I used to be envious of all the attention she attracted. Whenever we went to lunch or shopping, men would flock to her.”
“She was a redhead?” I ask.
“My hair color came from my dad. She was a natural blonde. But it was her eyes, the way she stared directly at people, looking for the good in everyone. Making eye contact came naturally to her.”
“You do that.” I meet her eyes.
She stares back, doing it now. Every time she looks at me, I feel like I won in life, like I’m the only person who exists in hers. And in the rare times when she looks away, it’s a punishment.
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But my mom…she did it with a sweet sort of innocence, so full of sunshine and compassion it was contagious. She was like that right up until the end. The cancer diagnosis came three months before my wedding. She made it long enough to watch me walk down the aisle and died shortly after.”
While I can sympathize with the break in her voice and the sadness crumbling her expression, I know what she’s doing. A little tit for tat. She shares. We share.
Leo and I exchange a look.
Yeah. That’s not happening. Our pasts don’t include sunshine and compassion. Cancer would’ve been a mercy in our family tree.
“How did you meet your husband?” I don’t care, but some masochistic part of me wants her to keep talking.
“In the ER.” Her eyebrows climb together. “He came in with a dislocated kneecap from playing basketball. I was the trauma nurse assigned to fix him up.”
“Did he fuck you in the exam room?”
Leo shoots me a glare.
