Page 100 of Cruel Dominion

I slammed the door, locking it as soon as he did.

Air shuddered out of my lungs and my knees buckled. Sweat broke out over my body. My hands shook.

What the fuck. I counted to fifty, then opened the door. He was gone, but down the street, a sleek black sedan was idling against the sidewalk. So out of place among the other older model vehicles with duct tape holding up their fenders and wires holding up their mufflers.

I couldn’t see into the tinted windows, but I knew Hudson Vaughn wouldn’t be in that vehicle. He’d be long gone, but he clearly wasn’t done with me.

“Carter?”

“Hmm?”

I looked up at her from where I was laying on my back. Anna was sitting next to me, hands resting on my abdomen. The wind breezing in over the ocean blew through the loose wisps of her hair that weren’t tied back in her bun.

“Do you think that taller people have a shorter lifespan?”

I chuckled, nudging her with my elbow. She would do that sometimes, tee up a question and then ask the most existential shit I had ever heard in my life. But then other times she’d just ask me what kind of meal I’d like to be turned into if I had been born a chicken.

Nuggets, of course. But only if I was to be eaten with sweet and sour dipping sauce.

“You’re going to have to tell me how you got to that hypothesis,” I said.

“Well, I think they would expend more energy trying to maintain more… mass. So, over time that would reasonably degrade the metabolism and stuff, right?”

I frowned, laughing harder.

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I mean, big dogs don’t live as long as smaller dogs,” she said with a shrug and I wasn’t sure if that was even true but I wouldn’t fight her on it.

“Okay but small planes crash more often than big ones,” I argued.

She slid her hand under my shirt. Her fingers were cold but I didn’t mind when she did that. She could touch me anywhere she wanted. Being out here with Anna, there was very little that could kill my mood. I hadn’t said a word about her father paying me a visit the day before and it seemed he hadn’t told her, either. I knew for a fact she would’ve said something if he had.

It felt…wrong. Not telling her. But she’d only worry.

And she had enough to worry about.

“Touche. I’ll have to think about it some more.”

I chuckled. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

She gave me a little punch to the gut and I mimicked losing air, making her laugh.

“Okay, Subject change, then. What’s one thing you wanted to do this summer that hasn’t happened yet?”

I sighed, reflecting on the trainwreck that was my life. I always tried to tell myself that things could get worse.

My dad was an abusive drunk? Yeah, but he hadn’t been to the house for a week and a half, and fingers crossed, maybe he’d gotten run over by a car somewhere or finally taken off like he threatened to do every night he drank.

I didn’t have a lot of freedom to think about what I wanted to do when what I needed to do was so much more important.

I wanted my mom to miraculously be cancer-free, but I didn’t think Anna was looking for impossible wishes. As usual, she wanted something real.

Something to hold onto or manifest.

I smiled. There was something, actually.

“Did I tell you that I love you yet?”

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