Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn

Author:Kate Karyus Quinn [Quinn, Kate Karyus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-04-26T07:00:00+00:00

ON THE LESS BRIGHT SIDE

I wake with a sudden jolt. The cable box clock tells me it’s 3:23. Which means I’ve been out five minutes, tops. Beside me, Smith groans.

“What was that?” I ask at the same time someone goes BAM BAM BAM on the front door.

Oh, no. This is how the day began. And the day began badly.

“Why is it always three knocks?” I ask aloud. At the same time I remember who was knocking this morning: W2. I hadn’t given him another thought after he got locked up in the basement. Did my uncles set him loose? Is he here looking for revenge?

Smith rubs at his eyes sleepily. “I dunno. How many times do you want people to knock?”

“How about not at all?” I snap at him.

“So you’re one of those types who wakes up grumpy, huh?” He asks the question while in the middle of a huge yawn, with his eyes at half-mast. His bruising has, if anything, only gotten worse as the day’s gone on, and yet for some reason he keeps looking better and better. Damn him.

I glare and resist the urge to slam him with, “And you wake up sexy,” ’cause that’s not actually an insult. “Let’s just go see who it is and what they want before they knock the door down.”

We pull ourselves from the couch’s cushiony embrace and go to answer the door. But it turns out we don’t have to, because at that moment it flies open and a big dude with an eye patch plows his way into the house.

“We’re here for Lennie,” the pirate man announces while his hard gaze darts back and forth examining us both. The guy is only a few inches taller than me, but what he lacks in vertical stature he more than makes up for in width. Every inch of his body is packed with muscle.

“I’m Lennie,” Smith immediately answers.

“No,” I say, at the same time the big dude says the same thing. Then he adds, “What you are is in the way.”

Then he very calmly jabs a short little syringe into Smith’s upper arm.

“What the—” Smith reaches for the syringe, pulls it out, and then his eyes roll up into his head and he falls to the floor, bringing me down beside him.

“What the hell did you do that for?” I yell as I struggle to sit up.

Something darts out from behind the big guy and slams into me. My head hits the hardwood floor and I close my eyes, feeling dazed.

“Damn it, Jules,” Pirate Man says.

Jules doesn’t reply. She’s a bit busy, I guess, grabbing hold of my shirt with her two tiny fists and shaking me so hard my teeth rattle.

At last she stops and makes this deep growling noise. I stare at her, speechless. Jules looks like Tinkerbell gone bad, complete with a bleached pixie haircut and lips painted an otherworldly shade of blue.

Being the sensitive person that I am, I say the only thing possible in such a circumstance.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.