Greed (The Damning Book 1)

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Greed (The Damning Book 1) Page 27

by Katie May


  But maybe, just maybe, I could make livable.

  “The movers are bringing in the furniture,” he continued. “I was thinking

  in a couple of hours we could go out to dinner. Check out the town.”

  He shrugged helplessly and something akin to guilt tore through my

  chest. My parents tried so hard to be the best that they could be. Moving

  across the country, getting a new job...they honestly believed that it was the

  best course of action for their family. I couldn’t fault them on that, even

  though they ruined my life in the process. I knew I was being a brat; I knew

  that I was making this whole situation harder than it needed to be. I vowed to

  myself, right then and there, that I would not shed another tear for the place I

  had left.

  No, I only had to wait a year before I could go back. Once I turned

  eighteen, there would be no stopping me. Jaron and I have already talked

  about colleges on the east coast. Fiona would want to come too. It would be

  the three of us, my boyfriend and my best friend, against the world. As it

  should be.

  I smiled wistfully at the fantasy, and my dad, mistaking my smile as

  acceptance of his proposal, blew out a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll let your sister and brother know.” He paused, fingers clenched

  around the doorframe. “We love you Camila. You know that, right?”

  I smiled at my father warmly.

  “Of course I know that. I love you too.”

  And I did. My siblings may annoy the shit out of me and my dads may be

  a bit too protective, but they were my family. They were the people I could

  count on when I thought about succumbing to the darkness. They were my

  light.

  Dropping my boxes onto the floor, I froze suddenly. The hairs on the

  back of my neck stood on end as if bolts of electricity were coursing through

  my skin. My hands turned clammy by my sides.

  I knew it was irrational to believe that someone was watching me, yet that

  pesky feeling wouldn’t go away. It was almost as if I was standing on an

  elevated platform, stage lights glaring down at me. I was aware that there was

  an audience, but individual faces remained indistinct.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I stared out the window. There didn’t appear

  to be anyone in our yard, and I scoffed at how ridiculous I was behaving.

  Colt’s conspiracy theories were finally getting to my head.

  Still, the feeling that someone was watching me did not diminish. If

  anything, it grew.

  “Nothing sounds good here,” Colt said, glaring at the menu as if his eyes

  could physically penetrate through it. I rolled my eyes once again at my

  brother’s dramatics.

  “Do you have to complain about everything?” I asked.

  “Do you have to be such a bitch?” he fired back, earning himself a glare

  from both of my dads. Dad hated when we swore, especially with what he

  considered as unnecessary colorful language. I have learned to get quite

  creative with my use of swear words. It was so fudging annoying. See? Even

  my mental thoughts were beginning to turn on me.

  We had found this restaurant downtown. We had to park at a meter, a

  couple of blocks away, because there were no open parking spaces closer to

  the restaurant itself. Despite the numerous cars, we were able to be seated

  right away, underneath a bear head. Yup. You heard me right. A good old

  bear head (because I really wanted Yogi to stare down at me while I was

  eating). The restaurant was, admittedly, cute, with a couple dozen wooden

  tables in the center of the room and a long bar opposite the door. The

  decorations adorning the walls varied from animal heads to dated newspaper

  clippings. There didn’t seem to be a set theme to the diminutive diner, but the

  overall feel of the restaurant was homey. Comfy.

  Our family had only garnered a few stares as we walked by. My dads

  were holding hands, and us children were trailing behind them.

  Karissa, with her rich ebony skin and darker hair.

  Colt, with his mane of blond hair and freckled face.

  And finally, me. Dark hair and tanned skin thanks to my Latino heritage.

  For the most part, the town had been friendly. The hostess had asked my

  parents how long they have been together, the waitress discussed how

  beautiful us children were, and a couple patrons at the bar commented that

  they had never seen us before.

  “We don’t get a lot of tourists here,” one of them stated.

  “We know everybody in this town,” said another. I snorted at his small-

  town logic.

  They seemed thrilled to discover that Papa was joining the police force

  and Dad got a job teaching at the college a few towns over.

  “I’m a deputy,” one of the younger men said, extending a hand. “The

  name’s Rick.”

  It wasn’t bad. Not at all. One of my biggest fears was the bigotry of a

  small town. We would be judged, shamed, cast aside. It had happened once

  before. Instead, nobody batted an eye at my parents’ marriage and their

  choice to adopt multiracial children. My respect for the town grew

  significantly.

  Our food arrived, and I practically salivated at the crispy chicken wrap on

  my plate. I liked food. A lot. Could you blame me? Chocolate and fried

  chicken and everything in-between.

  Fiona would often get on my case about my eating habits.

  “Seriously?” she would say, lip curling in disgust. “Do you want to get

  fat?”

  Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly vulnerable, I would listen to

  her. Other times, I would tell her to piss off.

  “How’s the cheeseburger?” Papa asked Colt. My brother was picking

  apart his dinner. Bread on one side of his plate, patty on the other. His nose

  was scrunched up as if the food was emitting a particularly pungent smell.

  “I’m not hungry,” Colt mumbled. The poor sandwich had been brutalized

  by my brother’s repetitive knife slashing.

  “Why did you order it if you weren’t going to eat it?” I snapped. He did

  this shit every day. I had long since stopped asking what went through that

  crazy head of his. “Is it because you’re afraid the government is going to

  poison you? Is that it? You don’t trust the meat?”

  “When you die, and I live, then we can talk.”

  “So are beers and chips the only food items not contaminated by the

  government?”

  Colt merely glared at me.

  After a few more bites of my wrap, I poked Papa on the shoulder.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, waiting for him to slide out of the

  vinyl booth. Karissa, who was sitting on a chair at the end of the table, smiled

  innocently up at me.

  “Do you have to go poop or pee?”

  My sister was a real classy bitch.

  “Don’t be gross,” I said, ruffling her hair.

  “I’m honestly curious!”

  “That’s a demented thing to be curious about,” Dad pointed out. Karissa

  huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Bodily fluids interest me. Is there something wrong with that?”

  Papa’s face had turned green.

  Dad patted the back of Papa’s hand sympathetically. If there was one

  th
ing that could make the monster man squeamish, it was talk of pee and

  periods and all that fun stuff.

  A useful weapon in my arsenal, if I do say so myself.

  I made my way to the bathroom quickly, did my business, and washed my

  hands. Frowning, I considered myself in the restaurant’s dirty mirror.

  I was short for my age, almost embarrassingly so. It made my petite

  frame seem almost childish. My hair was an onyx black, hanging down my

  back in light waves. I wasn’t model-thin like the other girls. A slab of fat

  made my belly protrude over the waistband of my jeans. Not skinny. Not

  completely fat.

  Not beautiful.

  Not ugly.

  Average.

  I frowned at the face reflected back at me, hating every flaw on my brown

  skin and every tangle in my long hair. Why couldn’t I have looked like

  Fiona? White and blond and skinny?

  Beautiful.

  Why couldn’t I be beautiful?

  I pushed aside the self-doubt and quickly dried my hands. My psychiatrist

  told me that I couldn’t allow my thoughts to sink back into such dark

  territory. There wasn’t a switch that I could just flip off, though. It took

  considerable effort to smother some of the darker thoughts and find my way

  back into the light. It was like tumbling through a riptide, my depression. I

  would sink beneath wave after wave of endless darkness, desperate to find a

  pocket of fresh air. Once I found it, mercifully, I would be pulled back under

  yet again. The water would carry me further and further away from the shore,

  away from the light. I needed to stay above water.

  I needed to stay in the light.

  I decided to think about school instead as I headed back to the table. I

  would be going to a new school. Was I nervous? Excited? What would Jaron

  think if-

  My thoughts were interrupted as my body collided with a wall. At least, I

  thought it was a wall. My anger quickly transformed into horror when I met

  the amused smirk of a handsome man.

  His hair was dark, a few shades lighter than my own, and he had lightly

  tanned skin. Unlike mine, his skin color seemed to be a product of sunlight,

  not genetics. He wore a black jacket, tight over his muscles, and a white shirt

  that accentuated his chiseled chest.

  “You made her speechless Ty,” a feminine voice said with a chuckle. A

  chorus of laughs greeted her statement.

  I tore my gaze away from Tall, Dark, and Sexy and faced the table that

  the voice had come from. There were about six of them - two girls and four

  guys. They all wore similar, black jackets with skulls on the back and had

  numerous piercings adorning their skin. It was the girl with the lilac hair that

  had spoken.

  “I’m sorry,” I sputtered.

  “Oh look,” the man I bumped into drawled lazily. “It speaks.”

  The group broke into another round of laughter.

  Feeling tears spring to my eyes, accompanied by the irresistible urge to

  run away as fast and as far as I could, I shouldered the stranger out of my

  way. Ty, I think the girl said his name was.

  “She’s so cute!” the second girl said. “Look at her waddle.”

  Ty, coming to stand beside me, mimicked the way I walked, hips swaying

  side to side in exaggerated movements. My face burned red. I had dealt with

  bullies when I was younger, but they had stopped after I befriended Fiona.

  The girl had a way of innately demanding respect and fear from anyone dumb

  enough to stare directly at her. Once I began dating Jaron? Nobody would

  dare even speak my name badly behind my back, let alone to my face. It was

  the type of power that both terrified and enthralled me. I felt as if I had the

  world at my fingertips. Were those feelings healthy? Normal? Sane? I

  wouldn’t be able to tell you. All I knew for certain was that I wished Fiona

  was with me now. She would know exactly what to say, what witty retort to

  come back with. I was inadequate compared to her; I couldn’t face my

  monsters alone.

  “It looks as if she’s going to cry!” Lilac girl squealed. “Aw. Poor baby.”

  Ty stopped moving almost immediately and turned towards me.

  “We were just teasing you.”

  “How dare you?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off with a flick of my wrist.

  “How dare you stand there and tease me? Does that make you feel manly,

  teasing a girl half your size? Does it make your flaccid dick suddenly hard?”

  Hissing, I took a step closer to him until we were nose to nose. “You are an

  asshole. I don’t even know you, yet I can tell that. Grow up. Or take Viagra

  to fix that little problem of yours.”

  “Wait!” he called.

  Ignoring him, I made my way back through the dining room and to my

  family. They were currently in a heated debate about the effectiveness of

  stools in the bathroom. Apparently, Colt believed that by elevating your feet

  when you were pooping, it would make said poop come out easier.

  My brother was a strange man.

  Papa’s eyes zeroed in on my face immediately. He had always been the

  most perceptive of my family members.

  “You okay?” he asked, eyes scanning the room as if looking for any

  potential danger. I bit my lip, debating whether or not I should tell him about

  the rude teenagers. I decided quickly against it.

  I would probably never see them again after today. People were dicks,

  especially kids. Besides, I didn’t want my fathers to know that their words

  and teasing had affected me. They would ship me off to the nearest hospital if

  I so much as described the darkness I could feel brewing inside of me. The

  dark, inky tendrils that threatened to consume me whole.

  I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the rest of my meal.

  Document Outline

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Copyright

  1. Z

  2. Z

  3. Z

  4. Killian

  5. Devlin

  6. Z

  7. Z

  8. Z

  9. Z

  10. Lupe

  11. Z

  12. Z

  13. Jax

  14. Dair

  15. Z

  16. Z

  17. Bash

  18. Z

  19. Z

  20. Z

  21. Jax

  22. Z

  23. Devlin

  24. Z

  25. Z

  26. Lupe

  27. Devlin

  28. Dair

  29. Z

  30. Ryland

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Katie May:

  The Darkness We Crave

  Gangs and Ghosts

  Present Day

 

 

 


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