Penance (Swallows and Psychos Book 2) by K. L. Taylor-Lane

Author:K. L. Taylor-Lane [Taylor-Lane, K. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781739989729
Publisher: K. L. Taylor-Lane
Published: 2022-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Kyla-Rose

Max pulls me through the crowd, pushing out of a fire exit into the alley behind. The cold December air assaulting my flushed face like hundreds of tiny papercuts as wind whips around us. I follow the alley down a short way, standing beside a large, green recycling bin. Cardboard overflowing from it despite its industrial size and piling up on the floor, but it helps stop the wind lashing at us on one side. Colourful graffiti covers the opposite wall, the bright green emergency exit light above the door the only thing allowing us to see. I kick my foot up against the brick, Max doing the same beside me. Offering me a cigarette, the white menthol stick pinched between his thumb and finger. I take it, our hands brushing.

“Thanks,” I smile softly, quickly placing it between my lips.

“’ere,” Max rumbles, flicking a little lime green lighter in my face.

The flame jumping around wildly in the arctic wind, despite his cupped hand around it. It finally catches as I inhale, the cherry burning brightly. I let my eyes fall shut, exhaling smoke through my nose as I lazily keep the cigarette between my lips. In through my mouth, out through my nose. Laying my head back against the wall, the vibrations of the music echoing through my skull.

“Lala, I wanna make shit right,” Max sighs. I lazily roll my eyes over to him. “I wanna not have this,” he grits his teeth. Motioning between us with his hand, “this tension, this angsty bullshit. It ain’t fuckin’ right, Lala, this ain’t supposed to be us.”

Inhaling deeply, I roll my cigarette between my teeth. Letting the smoke billow out from my lungs, puffing out between my teeth in gentle clouds. The wind whipping it away into the dark.

“What is supposed to be us, Maddox? I don’t think we were ever on the same page.”

I feel my insides twist, coiling like a viper ready to strike. My demon clawing at my chest. Her jagged claws slicing through flesh and bone, the hurt lodging in my throat. My memory flashing all those nights he’d be covered in love bites, stinking of someone else’s shitty perfume, to the front of my mind. Drunk out of his mind, pounding on my window in the middle of the night. I always fucking let him in.

“I-”

“Do you remember the night that you came over? The one when you threw a handful of shingle at my bedroom window from next door’s pathway and almost gave me a heart attack because it sounded like a pellet gun?” I interrupt him, cutting him off so I can make my point.

“Lala-”

“You hadn’t so much as looked at me for three months, but that night you turned up at my house. I’d just scrubbed sick from the carpet; Mum had smashed my head into the bathroom door in a fit of rage. Splitting my eyebrow before she proceeded to chuck up all over the hall. I scrubbed that carpet so I didn’t call you.

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