Breed by Chase Novak

Author:Chase Novak [Novak, Chase]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9780316198592
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2012-09-08T13:14:01+00:00

Rodolfo has been as good as his word and has taken Alice to a place where she can eat, get warm, and sleep. It’s a large apartment on West End Avenue, in a building that once was fancy but has gone down in the world, and now there is no doorman, and the elevator is self-service. The apartment itself is on the tenth floor, unlocked and unkempt. Rodolfo warms a can of soup for her, plunks down a carton of milk, and makes some toast—though he butters it with a heavy hand, crumbling it to bits. As soon as she has eaten, she is overcome with fatigue, and suddenly nine hours have passed like a shooting star glimpsed from the corner of your eye, and Alice awakens on a soft green sofa the pillows of which have a sharp but comforting animal smell. This must have been the favorite sleeping spot of the family dog.

“Hello?” she calls out softly, tentatively, sitting up, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. When her feet touch the ground, they land directly on Rodolfo’s shoulder—he has curled up next to the sofa and slept on the floor.

He reacts quickly to her touch; in less than a second, he is on his feet, in a slight crouch, his eyes sharp and wary. Seeing Alice, he relaxes, smiles. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

Alice shakes her head. “I can’t remember where we are,” she says.

“We’re at Peter Burns’s crib.”

“Who’s that?” Alice hears voices in the next room, laughter, the scuffle of feet.

“A friend. A kid. Don’t worry, he’s cool.”

“This is a kid’s apartment?”

Rodolfo shrugs. “Sort of.”

A boy about seven years old races into the room looking agitated and afraid. “Hey, Rodolfo, you better come. Luke and Dave are starting to fight.”

“Let them,” Rodolfo says with a wave.

“But last time…”

“It’s okay. Just let it happen.”

The boy shakes his head, submissive but dissatisfied. And a moment later, a hideous yowl comes from the next room, followed by a long rumbling growl that feels to Alice as if it were coming from right below her feet. She covers her ears the way she does when the subway comes roaring into her station.

“Come on,” Rodolfo says, taking her hand. “I’ll show you the place. You can come here whenever you want. It’s ours.”

As Alice allows Rodolfo to lead her across the largely bare living room, with its windows covered by bedsheets and its walls without pictures, she notices a couple of other sofas shoved into far corners. On one of them someone is sleeping, but so tightly curled that Alice cannot say if it is a boy or a girl, and on the other a teenage boy sits with his back to a teenage girl, who is vigorously brushing his long russet-colored hair. Rodolfo opens a door and just before he leads her into a long corridor, dimly lit by wall sconces with faltering flame-shaped bulbs, the young boy comes racing in again, this time even more agitated than before.

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