Loveless by Marissa Howard

Author:Marissa Howard [Howard, Marissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998593524
Amazon: 0998593524
Goodreads: 34002968
Publisher: Marissa Howard
Published: 2017-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

26

I pulled away from Nash and the bright yellow world vanished.

It had been less than a second, our lips barely touching, but it had felt longer. I blinked, released my hand from his and stepped back. My breath was heavy, my head light. The room was spinning.

Nash ran to the door and pulled it open, peered out into the darkness. A scream pierced the wind and goose bumps rose on my arms. There it was again.

“That sounds like Mallory.”

Nash looked at me, his eyes wide, and then sprinted through the door, down the steps, and toward the sound. I stilled myself against the wall, begging my head to clear, and then I followed.

There was no one by the fire. It was burning low, the orange flames curling with a thin black smoke that spread into the sky. I looked into the trees as I ran past. I couldn’t see anyone.

“Laney!”

Nash yelled my name and I followed it, around some bushes and past trees, into a small clearing. When I reached the edge of the opening, I stopped.

Mallory was standing off to the side, facing the other way, her hands over her face. She was shaking. Nash, Dalia, Gavin, and Alese were kneeling down in the middle of the clearing, on the grass, bent over something. Alese turned her head when she heard me. A tear was sliding down her face. She moved over so I could see, slid over on the grass just barely. My breath left me.

Theodore.

I panicked, threw myself on the ground next to him. His red hair was plastered to his head, his eyes closed. I froze. A bitter taste filled my mouth. Three large gashes sliced through his gray shirt to his stomach and a red liquid oozed slowly out, staining his clothes. The grass next to him was glistening.

Sweet, innocent Theodore.

“But how?” the words choked out of me, fragments of sentences jumbled together. “How did this happen?”

An image of the men with black eyes flashed through my mind, their mouths twisted into ugly grins.

I clenched my fists together, my breathing short.

“Who did this?”

“Laney.” Nash put his hand out, stopping me. He looked at Theodore and I saw his eyes in the moonlight. They were wet.

Tears were running down Alese’s cheeks now. Dalia’s face was white. Gavin was silent, staring. He was in shock.

“It was one of them.”

A voice came from the trees. I stopped, looked up. Arsen.

“I was sitting by me and Mallory’s fire, and I heard something. Someone struggling.”

He walked forward slowly, his body in the shadow but his sunglass-covered eyes on Theodore.

“I got up, went to check out the sound. And I saw Theodore, lying on the ground, cut up. Then I saw a man. He was standing by the trees, wearing dark clothes, a bloody knife in his hand. He ran.”

Arsen stopped, looked out into the trees. His face was gray.

“It was one of them.”

I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. The men with black eyes. They were still alive.

Nash stood slowly, looked at Arsen.

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