Page 150 of Unexpected Heroine

It’s laughable.

I’m so weak you could push me over with a feather. Stella agreed to share my room with me because I’m too damn chicken shit to sleep alone. Fortunately, Freya said the death lizard could hang out in her room, so at least I don’t have to sleep with that creature a few feet away.

At the thought, a shudder rolls through me.

“No one said you’re weak, Lettie bear,” Stella soothes, shimmying onto the couch between Freya and me. “We’re only looking out for you.”

She doesn’t have to say the rest of her sentence. I know how it ends. Because I can’t look out for myself.

An acrid taste fills my mouth from the bitterness swirling in my gut. I need something to rinse it away. Slowly, I stand and stretch. The twinge of pain through my ribs barely registers over the throbbing hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

“What do you need, Lettie?” Freya asks, already up and moving faster than me.

“Something to drink,” I answer, schlepping toward the kitchen.

She races ahead of me. “I got ya.”

I don’t have the strength to put up a fight, so I take a seat on a stool instead. My stomach growls, reminding me I haven’t eaten all damn day. They tried to get me to eat a few times, but I waved them off, citing an upset stomach.

Lowering my head, I rest my cheek on the cool, hard counter. Taking a series of deep breaths, I attempt to force away some of this smothering gloominess, hoping to replace it with another emotion—anger, shock, shame, embarrassment. Anything to get rid of this emptiness.

Yes, I’d take shame instead of this desolation.

It’s like I left a part of me back at his house.

Freya sets a big ol’ honking iced tea on the counter, making my mouth water. I sit up and grab it, noticing the ice swirling around and clanking against the inside of the glass.

As I bring it to my lips, a paralyzing fear slices through me out of nowhere. On reflex, I throw the glass to get it away from my mouth, hurling it across the kitchen. It hits the wall and shatters in a hundred pieces, sloshing ice and dark liquid in all directions.

With my eyes unfocused and unblinking, I sit there, my hand still in the position it was in before I chucked the drink.

Completely still. Frozen.

“What the fuck?”

“Lettie?”

“Is she okay?”

“What happened?”

I don’t know who says what.

Like a stone, I’m unmoving. Utterly paralyzed with fear.

Then I can taste it.

That taste.

Both bitter and too sweet for a Diet Coke.

Suddenly, bile rises in the back of my throat, and my gut pitches. A heave I can’t stop rocks its way up my chest. On autopilot, my body springs into action, and I bolt toward the hallway bathroom. My stomach empties onto the floor before I get there.

By round three, I finally make it to the bathroom. My eyes water as wave after wave pounds through me.

The whole time, that disgusting taste never leaves my mouth.

Not from the vomit. From the drink.