A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

One minute he was staring at an old car where a murder may have taken place, the next, the girl of his dreams was kissing him. He recalled the brief, but amazing, feeling of her body against his, her lips, her soft, pink lips pressing against his own.

Robert was trailing in the back again. He hadn’t said a single word since they left Monkey Hill. He was fairly certain that was the reason why none of them were talking. The pure hatred he thought he saw in that boy’s eyes after he turned away from Addy was almost mesmerizing, like endless wells of fury. He half expected Robert to club him in the back of the head with a rock and drag him off into a ditch somewhere.

But he didn’t make Addy kiss him, now did he? Something told him that Robert didn’t care. Was it jealousy? Was Robert in love in Addison? He couldn’t know. He had only just met Robert that day and only met Addy shortly before that. Either way, it wasn’t his problem. Not until Robert killed him, anyway.

As soon as Robert split off from them, Addy’s face grew into a huge smile. She stepped closer to him, so close, in fact, that their arms were touching.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

For the kiss, he wondered.

“He’s had a crush on me for as long as I can remember. I forget about it sometimes. I thought his head was going to pop right off when he saw me kiss you!”

“Well, I thought he was going to kill me.”

Her cheeks turning red, Addison laughed, her smile so big, and beautiful, and contagious, that one even grew on his lips.

“No, no dying for you yet.”

“I’m glad for that one.”

When they reached the end of their road, Addison reached out and grabbed Toby’s hand. She pulled, turning him around to face her. Their eyes met, and he fought the urge to look away, embarrassed for reasons he couldn’t begin to explain. Her teeth peeked out from between her lips. He smiled back, wondering if his face had turned red yet.

“Thank you for coming out with me today. I had a wonderful time.”

“It’s no problem at all,” he said.

“I think you’re really great,” she said, finding his other hand with her own. “There’s just something about you. I feel like I can really be myself when you’re around.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing at all. He couldn’t take his eyes off hers, and off her smile, which glowed, and her cheeks, which bloomed with rosy color. A feeling was growing inside him, a fluttering, like everything within him was undulating, his inside unable to sit still. Butterflies, he thought. He supposed he finally understood what that meant.

“And you’re just so adorable, with how nervous you are around me and whatnot.”

It was his turn to blush, his cheeks running red in an instant. He wanted to speak, to tell her he wasn’t nervous, but he was too nervous to get the words out. Before he could, she leaned into him again, wrapping her arms around him, and his moving around her. Their lips met. Hers were soft, and wet. She tasted like everything he could have dreamed of.

When she pulled away, a drop of rain fell from the sky, landing on his nose. He looked up at the dark skies and even darker clouds, which he hadn’t even noticed until then. He had been too distracted by Robert, and then by Addy and her lips.

“It’s going to rain,” she said. “We should hurry back.”

They ran down the sidewalk, the rain covering them, their laughs plenty, fighting to be audible over the rain, which had started coming down harder. They still held hands as they went, until finally arriving in front of Addison’s house.

They stopped for a minute, letting the rain drench them. They ignored it, too deeply engaged in each other to care about getting a little, or a lot, wet. She pulled him in one more time, their lips, their entire bodies soaked. The kiss was salty. He never wanted to pull away. But, alas, she finally did, taking a step back, their eyes snapping to each other’s as if drawn by something supernatural. She waved goodbye, a quick, flirty wave, before turning around and hurrying inside.

When he rotated to face his own house, for a second, beyond the layers of falling rain and dimming skies, he thought he saw something. He thought he saw people, not one or two, but many, far too many to count in that one second, all staring out the windows of his house, all staring at him.

But then he blinked, and he felt the cold rain pattering down onto him. And he was alone then, no Addy, no faces in the windows, just him and the house, which stood tall, and large, larger than any of the other houses on the road, looming over everything. It blended in with the rain and the darkness, looking like it wasn’t a house at all, but rather a shadow, a dark murky shadow of a house. But most of all, in that darkness that surrounded them, the house looked right at home.

19

They had ordered in, a party-sized pizza and some chicken wings. It was a meal that any of them would have been excited about under normal circumstances. Only this time, they weren’t, because they couldn’t be. Their appetites were drained away by the basement stench, which had leaked out from the basement even further, building up throughout the house like a fog.

The pizza and the wings ended up in the fridge, only a handful of slices having been eaten by those dedicated to getting something in their bellies. Their stomachs hurt, maybe from hunger, or maybe from whatever Trevor may have passed on to