Page 102 of Pretty Lethal
Kai blinks at the writing across the t-shirt before lifting his gaze to meet Wilder’s. “Have you been wearing that top ever since that night, waiting for the perfect moment to show it off?”
“Duh! That’s what you were supposed to be doing too!”
Kai and I both scrunch our noses in disgust. “It must stink by now. Have you even washed it?”
Outraged, Wilder’s mouth opens and closes before he grumbles to himself. “Idiots. I’ve been left to deal with idiots. How are we supposed to take down the bad guys in the name of Emilia if we’re not wearing the proper attire?”
“Ummm, we do it in what we’re currently wearing?” I offer, rolling my eyes when his back is turned.
“Fine,” he relents. “But a prime opportunity has been missed here. I’m disappointed in both of you. Next time, be better prepared.”
“I was kinda hoping there wouldn’t be anext time,” Kai drawls, clearly over this conversation now as he cocks an eyebrow in Wilder’s direction. “Do you need to remove more clothes, or can we get on with rescuing our girl?”
Wilder claps a dramatic hand over his chest and gapes at Kai. “Dude, now is hardly the time to ask me to strip naked and dance for you.”
“What?!” Kai blurts, bewildered. “I wasn’t—”
Wilder claps a hand on Kai’s shoulder as he moves to slide past him, deliberately brushing up against Kai’s side as he winks provocatively. “Don’t worry,” he purrs in a low, sexy husk, “So long as Emilia is between us, I don’t mind you looking.”
I just about manage to smother my laugh behind my hand as Wilder sidles to the front door, deliberately swaying his hips and looking like an idiot as he goes.
“What the fuck just happened?” Kai mumbles, staring after him in confusion.
“You just got Wildered.” I give him a sympathetic pat on the back. “I’d say you get used to it, but you really don’t.”
Chapter32
EMILIA
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
Except it’s really hard not to fucking panic when you’re entombed in a wooden coffin, surrounded on all sides by dirt, wondering if every breath will be your last.
I swear the air is growing thinner, but I can’t tell if it actually is or if that’s just my paranoia talking. However, I’m definitely not imagining the numbness in my fingers and on my face. If I don’t die from lack of oxygen, then I’ll surely freeze to death.
Neither are entirely enticing ways to die.
Certainly not options I would have chosen for myself.
I totally thought I’d die of old age in my bed. Just fall asleep one night and never wake up. Isn’t that the sort of death most people hope for?
Although, I guess it’s probably a rare few who actually have the good fortune to go out that way… and it looks like I won’t be one of them.
I’m trying to cling to hope that by some miracle the guys will get free and find me, but with each passing heartbeat where the cold seeps deeper into my bones, that glimmer of hope grows fainter.
My mind grows foggy, eyes heavy, until it takes concentrated effort to keep them open. Now that I’m lying still, forced to acknowledge the ache in every bone of my body from the car crash, the adrenaline that had been keeping me going is burning out.
I try various tactics to stay awake—reciting the alphabet backward, going through my times' tables, reviewing the lesson plan I had set out for the remainder of the school year, but when it feels as though dumbbells are sitting on my eyelids, I finally allow them to close and give myself over to sleep.
Thud.
I blink into the nothingness, my brain groggy and unfocused as I try to recall what woke me.
Thud.
The sound of something hitting against the top of my coffin instantly alerts me, and I scream loud enough to burst an eardrum as I bang my fists against the wooden top.
“Help! I’m in here!”
