Page 57 of Beast

“Forget about the debt, it’s all been taken care of. You need to rest and heal.”

“Not the debt. The accident. I should have told you. Let you remember. I’ve made such a mess of things. I was just trying to protect you. Oh, Blue.”

“What is blue, Uncle Maurice? You’re confused. You’ve had a head injury.”

“It was a miracle… we should never have come back here. Now you might get hurt too.”

Alarm tingles in the pit of my stomach. “What are you talking about?”

He grabs my hand and his eyes widen, and for a moment he seems more lucid than he has in years. “They killed them. Don’t let them kill you too.”

“What do you mean? Who are you talking about?” Fear spreads through me like flames. “Uncle Maurice…”

But just like that he is gone again. Swept away by his drug haze and back to sleep again.

Annie pops her head in. “Everything okay?”

I tell her what just happened.

“Funny, he was moaning about something blue last night. You don’t know what it means?”

“No.” I push back against the fear whipping up a firestorm inside me. “He said I might be in danger.”

“Do you think you are?”

I frown. “I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

Empathy softens her face. “It could be the combination of the medication he’s on and his injury. He’ll make more sense when he comes around. Until then, try not to worry.”

I nod.

But not worrying is a lot easier said than done.

The hours tick by in silence. Annie pops her head in from time to time to offer comforting words but nothing eases my pain.

In fact, as the minutes pass by, I grow more unnerved and more annoyed at my situation. I’m worried about my uncle, and it’s eating away at me.

So I mentally take it out on the best person I know.

Beast.

He might be paying for all of this, and for that I am grateful. But he is using me like a pawn in a chess game. Parading me about as his lover and moving me about on the chess board at his whim.

I think about him pulling me onto his lap this morning and the thickness of his cock rubbing against my panties as we kissed like we were starving for one another, and heat spreads across my cheeks.

He is demanding and inconsiderate.

And I’ve had about enough of it.

CHAPTER 21

BEAST

In Church,I update the rest of the club on Opie’s analysis of the synthetic phantasia. Thirteen pairs of eyes focus on me from around the table.

“If we want to stop the spread of this obnoxious drug, then we need to cut it off at the supply. We need to show whoever it is that they can’t come into our town and spread dysfunction to our townspeople.”

“If it’s the Psychos, you think they’re the brains behind this, or do you think there is a bigger fish in the pond?” Bear asks.

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