AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, come on! You could give me an interview, at least!” Ben stuck out his bottom lip and batted his dark eyelashes. “Pretty please with a big, juicy cherry on top?”
“No,” Mozley said firmly, and started to walk away.
Ben glanced at me. “Glad you’re okay. Call me later.” Then he was running after Mozley. “What about an anonymous interview? Or something off the books? Oh, I could help you write a tell-all memoir!”
“There’s Daddy!” Bud met Phoenix halfway, Junior on his hip. They exchanged kisses and Phoenix grinned, rubbing Junior’s head. The little verrid’s wings fluttered with joy and they embraced as a family.
Off to the other side of me, Robert and Hopper shared a quick embrace before Robert gave his fiancée a peck on the cheek that made Hopper’s ears turn red. Robert waved to Charlie, who was standing with Cupid over by the medic tent, which was where everyone seemed to be going, albeit at their own pace.
I watched my friends all converge on the big green tent, a smile on my face and warmth spreading through my chest. They were happy, all of them. Despite everything that’d happened, allthe war zones, and the conspiracies, and the wild goose chases, they’d all gotten their happy endings. No one deserved those happy endings more than my friends.
Except maybe for me.
I looked over at Ghost and held out my hand. “Well, what do you say, Ghost? Ready to go confirm I’ve got a couple of screws loose up here?” I pointed to my skull.
Ghost tilted his head quizzically.
“It’s a saying. It means… Ah, never mind. Let’s just go see these medics, okay?”
His claws curled around my arm. “Doctors…hurt?”
I turned my head and looked over at the medic tent where all my friends were gathering. All my life, I’d been terrified of being found out. I’d lived in isolation because of it, pushed people away. Even denied myself things I shouldn’t have, all because I was afraid someone might discover I was different. Not just my DNA, either. Everything about me was weird.
But that was how I liked it, and my friends…They’d never judged me for being a complete and total weirdo. I seriously doubted any of them even cared that I wasn’t fully human. If anything, they’d probably just laugh it off and say that explained a lot.
It was time for me to tell them.
And if the medics found out, and the government wanted a piece of me to study… Well, they’d have to go through Ghost to get it. I was fairly sure that wasn’t going to happen in the course of getting a few bolts taken out of my head. If it did, we’d deal with it.
Life was too short to live in fear of the what ifs.
“No, Ghost,” I said, squeezing his hand and taking a step toward the tent. “Nobody’s going to hurt either of us ever again.”
“Grab that box overthere for me, will you?” Honor pointed to a box wedged in the corner of the living room.
“Why aren’t you sitting down?” Ziggy bared his teeth at Honor. “Sit!”
Honor rolled his eyes. “For the last time, Kitten. I’m fine. My shoulder barely even hurts anymore!”
I knew that was a lie, since Honor’d had me mix him a special painkiller blend to smoke that morning. Well, maybe he wasn’t feeling it now, but he would be later. Still, I wasn’t getting in the middle of that fight.
It’d been two days since everything went down with Parker. I’d spent most of it asleep in a trailer that ESCU brought out to the property. When I wasn’t asleep, I was happily getting railed by the hottest tentacle monster this side of the tear. We’d basically been living on sex and pop tarts the last two days since Mozley wouldn’t let us off the property until the new houses were ready.
He was moving us out to Eden at Honor’s request. I almost wished I could say I minded, but I didn’t. Not really. The only people I knew in Michigan now were Ursula and Ben, and I wasn’t that close with Ben. Still, I felt bad about not telling Ursula I was leaving. It was necessary, though.
The cover story ESCU was spinning for us involved a gas leak and a fatal accident. Officially, I was dead. Unofficially, I was very much alive and looking forward to starting over with mynew fake identity as Marcus Wainwright. I hated that name. It sounded like he’d pulled it straight out ofOregon Trail. I’d wanted to use the alias Harry Longshlonger but Mozley said I couldn’t. That it wasn’ttasteful. Maybe he was right, but it would’ve been funny as hell to make him write it a hundred times on all that paperwork.
Ziggy grunted as he hauled the box up onto the table. “What’s in this, anyway?”
“Beats me.” I said with a shrug and continued picking through my vinyl collection. “That’s been back there forever.”
I wouldn’t have even remembered I had a vinyl collection if half the house hadn’t exploded in the backblast. That’d wrecked the hell out of the house, but at least it finally gave me the excuse I needed to go through everything and throw out all the junk. I wasn’t going to be such a hoarder at the new house. Ghost made me promise.
Honor pulled out a leather bound book and blew the dust off of it.
Ghost sneezed so hard he almost sent the record in my hand flying.
“Holy shit. These are Axel’s baby pictures,” Honor said.
