.jpg)
Light meets dark. Secrets meet
truth.
It's been three years, twenty-five weeks, and five days
since Isis Blake fell in love, and if she has it her way, it'll stretch into
infinity.
After a run-in with her mom’s ex-boyfriend, she scrabbles to
remember what she’s lost to amnesia. Her ex-nemesis Jack falls deeper into a
pit of despair, and his girlfriend Sophia does all she can to keep him to
herself. But as Isis’ memories return, she finds it harder and harder to resist
what she felt for Jack, and Jack finds it impossible to stay away from the only
girl who’s ever melted the ice around his heart.
As the dark secrets surrounding Sophia emerge, Isis realizes
Jack isn’t who she thought he was. He’s dangerous. But when Isis starts
receiving terrifying emails from an anonymous source, that danger might be the
only thing protecting her from something far more threatening.
Her past.
***This book contains language and sexual scenes, some of
which may be unsuitable for younger readers.
***This is the second book in the Lovely Vicious
series.
CHAPTER
1
Part 2
My life has
become a series of people asking me if I’m
better.
Except I’m
sitting in a hospital bed with a massive bandage
around my head like a turban. So no, I’m not better.
But people keep
asking anyway because it’s how you show
concern for someone you care about, I guess, but frankly a
giant box of
chocolate truffles and reign over a small kingdom would be
acceptable
stand-ins.
No school. No
home. All I do is sit in bed all day and watch
crappy soap operas in which people faint dramatically all
the time. Like, damn.
That shit’s an epidemic. I get so
bored I try to mimic their faints except the nurses catch me
and say stuff like
‘you have a head injury’ and ‘contrary to popular belief,
the floor is hard’,
or some nonsense, so nobody can blame me when I steal the
nearest wheelchair
and bolt down the hall at top speeds. NASCAR ain’t got
nothing on me. Except
the backing of huge corporations who give them money to go
fast. But still. I’m
twice as cool and my ride is pimped as hell – a worn-out
shitstain on the seat
from somebody’s dead someone and the stuffing pulled
slightly out of the
armrest.
“Good evening,
chaps!” I nod at two interns. They shoot each
other looks but before they can call security, I’m blazing
around the corner at
warp speed.
“Bloody good
weather we’re having!” I smile at a man sitting
in his bed as I pass his open room. He cheerily returns my
greeting with a
resounding “Go to hell!”.
I round the
next corner and come face-to-face with Naomi, my
nurse. Her hair’s back in a strict bun, her face angry and
worried and tired
all at the same time.
“’Ello, love.
Fancy a cuppa?”
“You’re not
British, Isis,” Naomi says.
“I can be
things,” I insist.
“Yes, well,
unless those things include a person who is
lying in bed recuperating, I don’t want to see them. And I
especially don’t
want to see them wheeling around the hospital like a
madman.”
“The madman is
back that way,” I jerk my thumb behind me. As
if to prove it, a loud “FUCK!”
reverberates. Naomi narrows her eyes and points at my
room.
“Back in bed.
Now.”
“Why you gotta
be like that?” I sigh. “We can work this out.
There can be bribes. Of the monetary kind. Or maybe not
monetary. Do you like
adventures? I’m full of those. I can give you at least nine
adventures.”
“You’ve already
given me one for the day. If you don’t get
back in bed, I won’t let Sophia in after her
check-up.”
I gasp. “You
wouldn’t!”
“I
would!”
I start to
faint dramatically, but she catches me with her
meaty arms and plops me in the wheelchair, pushing me back
to my room. I grumble
the entire way. In the doorway, I crawl out on my hands and
knees and fake-sob,
collapsing into bed.
“Oh, quiet, you
drama queen.” Naomi chides, and closes the
door behind her.
“Drama empress!” I
yell. “I prefer the title empress!”
My room’s
quiet. Too quiet. I huff and cross my arms and
blow bangs out of my face. I need a haircut. And an escape
plan. But looking
fabulous while escaping is somewhat required, so I’m putting
one before the
other.
I grab my phone
and text Sophia.
DEAD
PROTEIN IS TRYING TO EAT MY EYES. BRING THE SHARP POINTY
THING.
Her text comes
seconds later;
You
mean the thing you threatened that male nurse’s balls
with?
I sigh
contentedly at the reminder of my own past
brilliance. I’m so lucky to be me.
Yes.
That.
She sends one
smiley face; :D
Sophia and I
are the youngest people in this hospital,
discounting the kid’s ward, and they don’t let you in there
unless you’re a
doctor or a parent or you have permission, which is really
hard to get. Which
is why I use the windows. I hate jello and it’s all they
give you at meals so I
hoard the jewel-like cups and give them to the kids like a
gelatin-laden Santa
and it’s a big hit. Not so much with the nurses. And
security officers.
Regardless, Sophia and I make sense. Since the day we met at
lunch a few weeks
ago and I gave her my apple, I’ve felt like I’ve known her
forever. Being with
her is like a massive, run-on déjà vu. When she first told
me her name, I
blurted; “Oh! You’re Sophia!” like it
was a huge revelation. She asked me what I meant by that,
and I searched long
and hard in my own sizeable brain and couldn’t find a
reason. I’d just said it,
without thinking, and I didn’t really know why. I still
don’t know why.
Besides that
tiny bump in the road, she and I have been
getting along famously. You can tell because A. she hasn’t
run away crying yet
and B. she always ends her texts to me with a smiley. Only
people who like you
do that. Or people who want to secretly murder you. But
really, I don’t think
someone as delicate and beautiful as Sophia would want to
murder someone,
unless she wanted to be like, beautiful and delicate and bloodthirsty,
which, I’m not gonna lie, would add to her
considerable mystique
–
“Isis,” Sophia
says from the doorway. “You’re thinking out
loud again.”
I whirl to face
her. She’s in a floral sundress, with a
thick, cozy-looking sweater. Her platinum, white-blonde hair
is kept thin and
long, like strands of silver. Her milk-white skin
practically glows. To offset
all her paleness, her eyes are ocean-deep and navy-dark. In
one hand she
carries a book, and in the other –
“Scissors!” I
crow. “Okay, okay, deep breaths everyone.
Because I’m about to say something mildly
life-changing.”
Sophia inhales
and holds it. I point at her.
“You’re going
to cut my bangs!”
She exhales and
fist-pumps. “I’ll chop them all
off.”
“Soph, soapy
Soph soapbutt, we have only been together three
weeks and I love you dearly, like a sister, like we are
deer-sisters frolicking
in the woods, but this is extremely vital to my well-being
and I am trusting
you with my
life.”
“Ah, I see,”
Sophia sits on my bed, giving me an
understanding nod. “You keep all your vital organs in your
bangs.”
“As well as all
my future prospects with Johnny Depp. So you
realize how important this is to
me.”
“Obviously.”
“I am quite
serious.”
“Deadly.”
“It’s not like
you can make me look any less hot, since that
is impossible, but generally speaking don’t fuck
up.”
She runs her
fingers through my wild bangs. “Straight
across?”
“Uh, you’re the
fashionable expert here. I just sort of
throw on things that don’t have holes in them and hope for
the best. I read a
Cosmo once on the toilet. Does that
count?”
“Depends on how
long you were on the toilet.” Sophia brushes
my bangs with her fingers
experimentally.
“Years. They
talked about face shapes. Like, do I have a
square face? A heart-shaped
face?”
“Definitely
heart-shaped.”
“Really?
Because I was thinking more
that-one-unfortunately-misshapen-Skittle-in-the-bottom-of-the-box
shape.”
Sophia laughs.
“Just hold still, and close your eyes. I
promise I won’t disfigure you for life.”
There are the
soft sounds of snipping and Sophia’s gentle
fingers, and then she tells me to open my eyes. I leap out
of bed and dash into
the bathroom. The age-stained hospital mirror reflects a
short-banged girl, her
slightly-faded purple streaks gracing her forehead. A single
bandage wraps
entirely around the base of her skull. She looks tired, old.
Her face contains
two volcanic eruptions on her chin, one on her nose, and
bags under her eyes that’d
make Coach jealous. And something’s wrong. Something deep
inside the girl is
wrong.
Ugly.
“What’s the
matter? Don’t like it?” Sophia comes up behind
me. In the mirror, she practically radiates pale, waifish
beauty, and I’m…
“No, I love it.
You did great. Fab. Baf. Nothing’s wrong!
Absolutely zero. Absolute zero. It’s kind of chilly in here,
isn’t it?”
I run back to
the bed and burrito myself in the blankets.
Sophia follows, sighing.
“If you don’t
like it, you don’t have to
lie.”
“No, I do!
Shit, I really do. Sorry. It’s not that, it’s –
other stuff. Stuff from before I came here.”
“Ah.” She
settles on the foot of my bed. “The hard stuff.
The stuff the hospitals can’t
heal.”
I nod. Sophia’s
gaze isn’t piercing, but something about it
has weight, gravity, like she’s decades older than she
seems. I haven’t told
her about Nameless, mostly because she doesn’t need to know
when she already
looks so sad all the time. She hasn’t told me anything about
her past, either,
and it’s better that way. I can tell she’s had it worse than
me.
“Was it a boy?”
She asks, finally.
“Yeah.”
She folds her
hands over each other, like a dainty lady. The
nurses gossip about her; the way she’s been in the hospital
for five years, the
way she has no family – her mother and father died in a car
accident, and her
grandmother raised her, but she passed a few years ago,
leaving Sophia all
alone in the world. Mostly they gossip about the boy who
comes to visit her –
Jack, the same guy who happened to see our house door open
and saved me and Mom
from Leo. Infuriatingly good-looking, and an infuriatingly
good Samaritan, he
apparently visited her a lot. But since I came, he hasn’t
come at all. He’s
sent letters to Sophia (letters! In this day and age!), but
he hasn’t come
personally. The nurses love to gossip about that, too. I
scream politely
from across the room
correct them whenever I can;
I don’t know him! He
barely knows me! I’m indebted to him, sure, but there’s
nothing going on and
there never will be because duh – all
boys who aren’t Hollywood actors with prestigious pirate
acting careers are
gross!
“I’m sorry,” I
blurt.
“For
what?”
“For your
boyfriend. He’s…he’s stopped coming around since I
came, and if it’s because of me, I’m sorry, and I know
that’s arrogant to
think, but the nurses blab and I can’t help but think
–”
She pats my hand
and smiles. “Shhh. It’s okay. They don’t
know anything. He’s just busy is all. He works a lot, and he
has school.”
“I have
school,” I grumble.
She plops the
book she brought down on my lap. “And you have
seven chapters of The Crucible to read if you wanna catch up
before you go back
next week!”
I contemplate
seppuku, but after remembering how big the
medical bill for a cracked head is, I refrain. Mom’s having
a hard enough time
paying without me adding spilled organs and general death to
the list. Besides,
I can’t die yet. I still gotta thank Jack properly. Dying
before you pay
someone back is just plain rude.
“I don’t wanna
go back to school,” I say.
“Yes you
do.”
“I totally do.
It’s a snoozefest in this
place.”
“Then we better
get reading.” Sophia smiles. I groan and
roll over, and she starts reading aloud. She enjoys
torturing me. Or she’s just
happy to have someone here with her. I can’t decide which.
We might get a long
great, but she’s still a huge mystery to me. Me! The
queen empress of
deducing what people are all about! I study her face, her
hands, her dress as
she reads. Everyone in the hospital knows Sophia, but no one
knows what she
has, exactly. The nurses don’t like to talk about it. I
asked Naomi and she
glared and told me it was under doctor-patient
confidentiality. Sometimes
Sophia stays in her room for ‘treatments’, and those last
for days. She doesn’t
limp or cough or vomit, and no bandages or stitches are on
her. Except for the
fact she’s so pale and thin and sometimes complains she has
migraines, she’s
perfectly healthy as far as I can see.
“Soph,” I interrupt.
She looks up.
“Yeah?”
“I know this
might be super invasive, and historically
invading has been pretty bad overall, but I don’t think I
can physically
contain my curiosity any longer. Or, I could. But I’d like,
implode the star
system from the stress. Why are you in the
hospital?”
Sophia slowly
closes the book. “You really don’t remember,
do you?”
“Remember
what?”
Her eyes dampen
with sorrow. She stares out the window for a
long time before sighing.
“What?” I
insist. “What is it?”
Sophia looks
back at me. “Oh, nothing. It’s just sad, is
all. I’m sad for him. He was so happy, for a
while.”
I wrinkle my
nose, and before I can explode with the demand
for answers, Sophia starts talking again.
“I have the
same thing you have.” She taps her head with one
finger. My mouth makes a little ‘o’.
“You…split your
head open like a melon, too?”
She laughs, the
sound like bells made of crystal. “Something
like that.”
I look over at
the bag she brought. A bunch of romance books
crowd it, various clones of Fabio flashing their brooding
frowns on every cover
as a scantily dressed female is in the inevitable process of
fainting on a rock
somewhere nearby, preferably directly beneath his crotch.
“Why do you
even like those? Aren’t there just like,
princesses and kissing and misogyny?” I wrinkle my nose.
Sophia shrugs.
“I don’t know.
I like the princesses.”
“They’ve got
great dresses and fabulous hair and loads of
money. Kind of hard not
to.”
“I suppose I
like the way the stories always end happily.
Since…since I know my story won’t end as
happily.”
My heart twists
around in my chest. She sounds so sure of
herself.
“H-Hey! Don’t
talk like that. You…you’re the closest thing
I’ve ever met to a princess. Like, a real life one. Minus
the tuberculosis and
intermarrying. And like,
beheadings.”
Sophia laughs.
“You’re a princess too, you know. Very brave.
And noble.”
“Me? Pft.” I
buzz my lips and a delightful spray of saliva
mists the air. “I’m more like…more like…I guess if I was in
one of those books
I’d be like, a dragon.”
“Why?”
“It just makes
more sense!” I smooth my hair. “Fabulous
glowing scales. Beautiful jewel-like eyes.”
“Wings for
arms?” Sophia smirks.
“That’s a
wyvern! Dragons have wings independent of their
limb system! But I forgive your transgressions. I’ve
encountered a bit of
heartburn today and am not in the mood to eat a maiden like
you in the
slightest.”
“What would you
do as a dragon?”
I shrug. “You
know. Fly around. Collect gold. Fart on some
townspeople.”
Sophia is quiet for a moment.
“But I still
don’t get it. Why does a dragon make sense for
you?”
“Think about it.
I’d just make a badass dragon. I
mean…nobody really likes the dragon. You get to be alone, in
a cool quiet
place. As a princess everybody likes you and you gotta be in
the middle of hot
sweaty balls all the
time.”
Sophia raises
an eyebrow.
“Ballroom…balls. Dances.
Uh.”
She laughs that
chime-laugh, and I can’t help the laugh that
bubbles up, too. I sound like a donkey.
“And I mean,” I
add. “You know. Dragons never have to worry
about. Um. What I mean is, princes don’t fall in love with
dragons –”
Ugly.
“ – they fall
in love with princesses –”
Did you
think that’s what this was? Love? I don’t date fat girls.
“ - so it makes
more sense, you know?”
“Isis?” Naomi
pokes into the room. “Let’s go. It’s time for
your session with Dr. Mernich. Hi
Sophia.”
“Hello,” Sophia
says, and smiles at me. “You should
go.”
“Ugh, no thank
you. Mernich’s going to ask about my feelings
and frankly I’d rather swallow a centipede than talk about
those things. Or
become a centipede and crawl away. Can I become a centipede?
Do they allow that
in America
-”
“Isis,” Naomi
says sternly.
“- you can
become a certified lightsaber maintenance
engineer in America, so I really think you should be allowed
to become a bug -
”
“Arthropod,”
Sophia corrects.
“ – arthropod,
and Naomi! My, what big hands you have. The
better to grab me with, am I right? ACK, gently, woman! I’m
damaged goods!”
Naomi steers me
out of the room, Sophia cheerily waving
after us.
Did you miss part 1 of Chapter 1 from SAVAGE DELIGHT?
Click here to find where to can view
it!
Sara Wolf is the author of ARRANGED, a college-aged romance
series centered on an arranged marriage. She’s currently working on her next
New Adult romance series. She’s addicted to the Vampire Diaries, loves
chocolate and romantic angst, and can’t get enough of damaged heroes.
Website: http://sarawolfbooks.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sara_Wolf1
No comments:
Post a Comment