Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set by Ellery A Kane

Author:Ellery A Kane [Kane, Ellery A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780578413891
Published: 2019-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

Butch

May 5, 1994

Eight days before I killed her

I’d spent the last three afternoons in the stacks of the Berkeley Public Library finding my religion. Or losing it, depending who you ask. Gwen had told her parents we were studying, and I had no one to tell. Which made it not count somehow. Like the tree that falls in the forest with no one around to watch it go.

Anyway, it wasn’t a total lie. Making out with Gwen, I had studied every inch of her body—her pouty pink lips when they’d pressed against mine; the spools of her silky blonde hair I’d fisted in my hands; and the miles and miles of long, tan legs, she’d wrapped around me, pulling me closer with the kind of desperation I didn’t know I could inspire in anybody. Certainly not a girl like her.

And then, holy mother of God, this afternoon Gwendolyn Shaw, Goddess of the Stacks, had dropped to her knees, unzipped my fly, and taken me to heaven. Right there in the religion section of all places. A-freakin’-men.

“So what’re you doing this weekend?” she’d asked me as we walked toward the library’s exit. She’d given a fluttery wave to the woman at the front desk. As cool as a cucumber. That was Gwen. Like she hadn’t just rocked my world.

“I dunno.” Me, on the other hand. I was still weak-kneed, and my brain wasn’t working right. “Nothing really.”

“Wanna come to a party with me? On Saturday? It’s at Matthias’ house.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Two words. That seemed about all I could manage right now.

We usually split up there, at the double doors. Gwen would go first, sashaying past the book drop to Daddy’s awaiting chariot, ready to whisk her up to her tower in the Hills. I’d hang back and count to fifty before slinking out to the double-parked ’Cuda and driving home to my Blue Bird dungeon. But that day, Gwen didn’t let go of my hand, sweaty as it was.

“My dad wants to meet you.”

My stomach lurched with the kind of instant panic I reserved for officers of the law. “Right now? Are you sure? He’s probably in a hurry. Doesn’t he have work to do?”

“Relax, Calder. He won’t bite.” She raised my hand to her mouth and sunk her perfect, pearl teeth against my skin. Instant boner. But at eighteen, that’s how it went. Lust, grief, rage—everything boiled so close to the surface, it didn’t take much to trigger an eruption.

I ducked into the nearest aisle, eyes darting from shelf to shelf, desperate for the anti-Gwen. Not just the most boring book I could find, it had to be next level. Like watching paint dry during a calculus lecture in church. Finally, I found it. The History of Farming in Central America in the 1900s. That’d work.

Gwen giggled at me as I stared at the words on the mud-colored spine and waited it out.

“It’s not the biting I’m worried about,” I told her, finally allowing myself a glimpse in her direction. Just in time to watch her set a square of watermelon bubblegum on her tongue.

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