Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

making it any harder than it already had to be. She pulled her boat alongside his and stared into the darkness until her eyes adjusted and Ash’s face began to take shape.

Lips and nose and mouth. Long eyelashes. Gold eyes.

“You came.” Her throat constricted around the words.

“Dorothy,” Ash said, and reached for her.

She allowed him to pull her close to him, arms wrapping around her narrow shoulders, and then his lips found hers and they were kissing and everything else fell away.

Oh, how she wished she could stay in this moment.

But the dagger was still there, in her hand. Between them, always.

She pulled back and saw, immediately, how the light seemed to dim from his face. He studied her.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said.

Dorothy, raising the dagger, said, “Of course it—”

Dorothy jolted awake, her skin burning, sweat coating her forehead and palms. Darkness swirled around her, and for long moments she couldn’t remember where she was.

Then, shapes began to take form: tall buildings and trees and sky. She was on the Fairmont roof. She must’ve fallen asleep.

She closed her eyes, gathering herself. Her hands were trembling. She could still feel the give of Ash’s skin and muscle beneath her hands, Roman’s dagger sinking into his body with frightening ease, the damp warmth of his blood coating her fingers.

What was that?

It had felt like a memory of some sort. She knew that it was possible to remember things that hadn’t happened yet, but she thought that only happened inside of an anil. So, what was this? A dream? A nightmare?

A premonition?

Whatever it had been, it seemed real. Like something she’d lived through before.

Dorothy closed her eyes, shaking the remnants of the dream from her head. When she opened them again, she saw that the sky above was tinged with pink. Dawn was approaching. She felt a crick in her neck and stretched, cringing. Perhaps the roof had not been the wisest place to spend the evening. Every muscle in her body was tight, every one of her limbs stiff and creaky.

The sounds of movement and voices drew her attention to some commotion down below. She eased over to the edge of the roof, her boots sending bits of debris tumbling over the side, and peered down.

Cirkus Freaks had filled the docks. Their black cloaks made them look like a swarm of insects, an infestation. Dorothy frowned down at them.

What are they doing? she wondered, creeping closer to the edge of the roof. Mac must’ve given them some assignment, but what?

She craned her neck out as far as she dared, gripping the side of the roof so tightly her knuckles turned white. The ground spun dizzily below her.

The Freaks appeared to be putting up posters and handing out flyers. She couldn’t read what they said from this distance. She would have to get closer.

She started to back away from the roof’s edge when something caught her eye.

It was a woman. Like the Freaks, this woman was dressed all in black. Her black dress had a high neckline and long sleeves, and she wore it with heeled boots, a black hood, and a mask that completely covered her face. It was the mask that drew Dorothy’s attention. As far as she knew, she was the only person who wore a mask in New Seattle.

Have I started a trend? she thought wryly. She rather doubted it.

And there was something else about the woman, something . . . disturbing. She had a strangely magnetic quality to her, a gravitational pull. Dorothy couldn’t manage to tear her eyes away. She felt a chill move through her as she watched the woman move down the docks before, finally, disappearing around a corner.

Who was that?

Dorothy waited until she was certain the woman had gone and then, making sure that Roman’s dagger and the Professor’s journal entries were carefully stowed away in her cloak, she crawled over the side of the roof and began the long climb down.

Dorothy kept to the shadows. She watched from around the side of the building as the Freaks hung their mysterious flyers, voices muffled by the sound of the water lapping up against the side of the docks, and the thin, harsh morning wind.

And then, when they began to move on, down the dock and away from her hiding place, Dorothy slipped out into the daylight, quiet as a shadow, to see what the poster was.

Wanted for murder, it read. Below, there was a picture of Ash’s face.

Dorothy lifted a trembling finger to the poster, something cold washing over her. It looked like it had been copied from an old magazine clipping. Ash wasn’t staring at the camera but grinning at something off in the distance. He was wearing the beaten leather jacket Dorothy knew so well, and his skin was reddened from the sun, wind blowing his blond hair into his eyes.

She looked away, her eyes traveling down the docks. These posters hadn’t just been hung on the Fairmont, she saw, but on every building on this block. It was probably safe to assume that the Freaks had papered every building downtown.

A chill went through her. It was one thing when Mac had told the Cirkus Freaks that Ash was responsible for Roman’s murder. But now he had the whole city looking for him.

“You certainly picked a good time to disappear,” Dorothy muttered, swallowing. If Ash hadn’t died in the boat last night, she hoped he had the sense to stay gone. If he stepped foot in New Seattle, he’d be dead within the week.

Feeling a sudden rush of anger, she tore the flyer off the wall, balled it up, and let it drop into the waters below. It wouldn’t help, these flyers were everywhere, but she felt some small measure of relief as she watched the ink on the poster bleed, the paper grow soggy. One down, she thought. Yanking her hood up over her head, she tried to blend in with the other people on the docks.

She kept her head