Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
"It wasn't a relationship, Eleanor."
"Wasn't it?" She raises an eyebrow. "You came when I called. You let me photograph you. You listened to my stories about your father."
"I never agreed to any of it," I insist. "I just... whenever I saw you, I stood still. That was all.”
And, technically, what I’m tellin’ her is the truth. I stood still while she took her pictures. There was no discussion. Not at that time. She captured me in her camera and then I’d find something. A note stuffed in my jacket pocket or attached to my motorcycle handlebars with a rubber band. It went on like that for a whole year. The stories about him trickled out like that.
"You got what you wanted," Eleanor says. "And I got what I wanted."
I got what I wanted, all right.
An excuse. A way to justify this cravin’ I had for the outlaw life.
Eleanor's ghost moves closer to me. "The first time I saw you on that Honda Shadow, I thought he was back from the dead. You looked so much like him, it hurt to breathe, Legion."
I turn away from her, unable to bear the naked emotion in her eyes. This is what I never told Savannah.
How her mother loved a ghost, and saw him every time she looked at me.
Is this what's in store for Savannah if she and I stay with it. If we don't give up. If we make good on that pledge we said only with our eyes that first time we held hands.
Will I turn into my father, causing her to turn into Eleanor?
Or will she become something less?
Truth be told, it's the second one that scares me.
I don't want her to be something less.
I want her to be something more.
CHAPTER 3
The silo walls start to blur around me, like someone's takin' an eraser to the edges of everything. The grain dust that's been dancin' in the light freezes mid-air, suspended like stars in a dead sky. Eleanor's ghost flickers at the corners, her form dissolvin' into something less substantial than memory.
"Legion," a voice cuts through. Not Eleanor's. Not the past. "Legion, please. Your fever's too high, baby. You gotta come back to me."
Savannah.
Adult Savannah. Her voice breaks through whatever this is—hallucination, fever dream, death. The panic in her tone feels like cold water splashin' against my consciousness.
"They're sayin' the infection's reached your bloodstream," she continues, words comin' from everywhere and nowhere. "You need to wake up now."
Eleanor's ghost disappears completely. The silo walls start to fade, and something else bleeds through—the rhythmic beep of machines, the squeak of shoes on linoleum floors, the clinical smell of antiseptic cuttin' through the grain dust.
I don't move. Can't move. My body feels anchored to a different reality than my mind. The brand on my chest—the one that was missin' in the memory place—burns with real fire now. Not the ceremonial kind. The kind that kills.
"Mr. Kane, can you hear me?" Another voice. Clinical. Professional. "If you can hear me, try to open your eyes."
I don't. Not yet. There's somethin' unfinished here. Somethin' I need to see before I can go back. The infection might be killin' me, but this journey through memory feels just as vital. Like if I don't finish it, I'll lose somethin' more important than my life.
I'll lose myself.
The hospital sounds warp and dim as I push them away. The silo begins to rebuild itself around me, grain dust resuming its slow dance in the light. But it's different now. Less solid. The edges of everything have a transparency to them, like I'm seein' through the thinnest veil.
I feel time pressin' down. Whatever grace period my mind's been given is runnin' out. The light in the silo shifts, shadows extending across the concrete floor. Afternoon moving into evening. My time here fadin'.
I stand in the Terry Garage parking lot, sweat soaking through my shirt like I'm under a goddamn waterfall. The midday heat beats down on the asphalt, making the air shimmer and warp.
My stomach growls, reminding me I haven't eaten since yesterday's half-sandwich at the garage where I work full time now for part-time pay.
Just as I'm lifting the last box of parts off the truck, a gleaming white Range Rover pulls into the lot, kickin' up dust that settles on my already filthy jeans. I don't need to see the driver to know who it is.
Eleanor fuckin' Ashby.
"Not now," I mutter, turnin' away like I don't see her. "Go away."
My life's a goddamn mess this summer. Savannah didn't come home at all—off at some fancy horse camp in England with people who probably wipe their asses with hundred-dollar bills. It's like that girl exists in some parallel universe that occasionally crosses with mine, just enough to remind me of what I can't have.
And now her mother shows up, probably wanting to take more pictures of the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Like I'm some fuckin' zoo animal she's studying.