Page 65 of The Hallows Queen

Running my hands along the shiny metal of the trunk, I circle the SUV and peer inside. I don’t know what I’m looking for; I just need to find one thing that gives me the answer I need – that it’s hers.

The car is clean inside, not even an empty cup left in the cup holder, and the faith I had in this experiment fizzles away. Maybe I won’t find her after all.

I’m running through options in my head – I could text her, hope she feels the pull in her chest like I do and gives me some sort of green light – when I reach the front of the vehicle. I almost fall over from relief when I see the sign hanging at the base of the parking spot.

Penelope Leyton – 4B

Every fucking muscle in my body relaxes, my limbs tingling with relief and excitement because,holy fucking shit.Not only did some miracle happen that gave me the sign thisis, in fact,her car, but it gave me her fucking apartment number.

I want to skip down the aisle again, jump up and click my fucking heels together like a little boy.

I fucking found her.

I lean against her car, hoping her alarm isn’t sensitive, and rip my cigarettes from my back pocket. My hands shake as I remove one and slip it between my lips, and they continue to shake as I fish my lighter out, engulfing the end of the cigarette in flames.

Sucking on the filter until my lungs burn, I try to calm the booming heartbeat underneath my ribs.

My stomach hurts with feelings I don’t recognize, and it feels like I can’t fucking breathe. With my head floating with anxiety, it threatens to spill over into a panic attack. Suddenly, I want to run away from here and pretend I never found her.

I’ve never felt my heart beat so fast, so heavy, so fucking pleasurably painfully in my life. Nothing has ever made me feel like this before, like I want to pull my heart from my chest and gift it to her. Like I want to crack every bone in my body at once and tear my flesh from them so she can see everything underneath.

I feel good and bad at the same time – the unfamiliar making me so fucking uncomfortable that I want to scream.

I suck down more of my cigarette, hoping the nicotine will level me out.

When I’ve blown the smoke out over my head, I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, letting oxygen fill my lungs until they burst.

What the fuck am I doing? Chasing a woman? Stalking her? Fucking figuring out where she lives, because what? I’m horny? There’re plenty of holes I can fill in Luxington… why am I here?

When I’m burning filter, I open my eyes once more and toss the cigarette onto the ground. Stomping it out, I decide to find her door and see what happens. To see what I feel.

Confusion and anxiety still simmer in my chest as I cross the parking garage to the doors that take you inside the building.

Holding on to the handle, I inhale slowly and deeply, trying to gain some of my composure back. I can’t go in there acting like a scared boy. I need to be the confident man she’s drawn to.

I clear my throat, and once I feel the muscles in my back relax, I pull the door open.

Chapter18

Penelope

Sweatpants have never feltas fucking good as they do right now. With Chinese food ordered and Criminal Minds reruns playing on my TV, I finally curl up on the couch with a very large glass of wine after the longest first day of school ever.

I can’t even begin to unpack everything that happened today, so fantasizing about Spencer Reid is the best distraction I’m going to get. There’s something about his nerdy little body that just does it for me. That, and his big ass brain. I love a man who can out-talk everyone in the room.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table, but I’m too comfortable to reach forward and grab it. Every muscle in my body hurts, I’m not sure why. I feel like I ran a marathon today instead of sitting at a desk, watching a classroom.

I start to daydream about my giant bathtub filled to the brim with scalding water and bubbles, when there’s a knock at my door.

Groaning as I get up, I say a curse under my breath as I head for the door to get my Chinese food.

My stomach growls as I reach the door, hunger making me pull the door open quickly to get my hands on my takeout, and I find Hayden Monroe standing on the opposite side, cocky grin in place.

I hold on to the door for support as my legs go weak, my eyes widening with surprise. “What the fuck?”

My head swims with nerves, and he chuckles before he points to my sweatshirt. “Cute.”

I look down at my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt I got when I was fifteen at Disney, then back up at him. “What the fuck?”

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