Page 1 of Manhattan Tormentor

P R O L O G U E

Finn

The crazy shit is happening again.

That thing where my blood boils beneath my skin and my heart pounds as though it’s going to burst out of my chest.

Not a heart attack. I might prefer that to knowing what itreallyis.

My reaction tohim.

I see his face in angles and lines.

The sharp chin and floppy light blond hair falling into his brightest blue eyes.

I hate how I notice the lengthy frame of his body and the way his hands hold those notebooks he’s always carrying.

He’s a nerd and dresses as one. Jeans with slashes in both knees, a comic book t-shirt under a dark hoodie and a pair of Timberland boots on his feet. The kid needs to drag himself back from the 90s. The oldie decade is dead. I’d roll my eyes if they weren’t squinting aversion.

Unaware.

He’s always sounawarein his own surroundings.

It’s reckless in this jungle, where the weak get eaten alive.

I want to know what’s on the nerd’s mind all the time.

What makes his brain so interesting that he can act as though no one else is around him?

He strides the hallways and rarely glances at anyone.

Plenty look at him, and he only looks up from his shitty book when they call out to him.

It’s an oxymoron how he’s a popular nerd.

Everyone loves him, and that means I hate him.

I hate how my belly clenches every time I catch a whiff of apples because that asshat always smells like the fruit.

Does he eat them by the tree load?

Who cares?

I don’t.

I care that heannoys me.

Impossible to work him out. He’s a puzzle I can’t make sense of.

Thisannoyancestarted not so long ago.

And the more I see him, the worse it gets.

Resting a shoulder against my locker, my crew bound up to me, and I hardly give any notice to their conversations.

Bates, Sofia, Paris and Preston.

They crave my attention, but I tune them out. Bates will brag about who he banged last weekend. And Sofia will have her ninth, rich bitch third world, problem of the day.

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