Filed To Story: Chasing the Rejected Luna's Heart (Clara & Liam) Book PDF Free
I hopped on before the thing could go off without me, still not really sure what she found so offensive. I thought my outfit was pretty innocuous since I was just wearing the T-shirt and jeans I had been wearing when I was cast out, but humans were a mystery to me. And not a fun, exciting mystery I was eager to solve. More like a riddle concerning what’s in the back of the refrigerator, if my limited experience with them thus far was a proper indicator.
The paper tag on the keys said my apartment was on the third floor, and the lady in the elevator was going up to the seventh, so I pressed the other button at risk of further inciting her ire.
The elevator groaned and lurched as soon as the doors slid shut, and I gripped the railing even though I was pretty sure it was a biohazard. I only let myself breathe when we finally made it to the third floor and the doors slid open. Judging from the first scent, the entire floor was made of mold, but I was too eager to get inside to really care.
My apartment was near the end of the hall, and as I walked toward it, I passed several other battered wooden doors, a variety of ripe smells and loud sounds coming from within. There was one apartment a few doors down filled with the screams of a couple arguing at the top of their lungs, TV blaring in the background, and a small child’s wailing, just to round out the cacophony.
My hands trembled a little as I tried for the door, but I felt another surge of anxiety when the key wouldn’t turn in the lock. I thought I must have the wrong room when I finally managed to get it to click open with one more turn.
The lights were off within, but my vision adjusted to the dark quickly enough. Guess that shifter trait hadn’t skipped me over entirely. I was relieved when the light came on, even if it was a harsh fluorescent bulb dangling from a loose fixture in the ceiling that I highly doubted was up to code. Any code, really.
The first thing I noticed about the place, other than the big grayish stain in the middle of the carpet that looked a bit too close to the outline of a body for comfort, was that it wasn’t an apartment so much as a single room. There was a small sink on the other side of the room next to the only window, a narrow rectangle covered by scraggly blinds missing half their slats. It corroborated my theory, based on the urine smell and the stains, that the person who had lived there before me had alotof cats.
Next to the sink was a microwave and an old wooden cabinet that sort of passed for a counter. It counted as a kitchen only in the most liberal sense of the word, and I had to fight back a strangled laugh in my throat. I was unsure if it was amusement, hysteria, or a little of both. This place was half the size of my room back home, but hey, at least it was furnished.
My eye caught a ratty green plaid couch facing a wall, and I wasn’t sure if that was a feature or a drawback. I dropped my suitcase onto it and locked up, deciding the chain and extra deadbolt were there for a reason.
I was still spiraling internally, but exhaustion had overtaken pretty much every other emotion within me. Or maybe it was just shock. Either way, it was kind of a relief in its own odd sense.
While I had been reluctant to waste any space in my luggage, I was relieved I had elected to bring a throw blanket with me. Mom had knitted it ages ago, so it kind of felt like anathema to place it down on the end of the bare yellowed mattress, but I figured she would be glad it was going to practical use rather than sitting on the back of my desk chair.
I sank down on the edge of the bed and looked around, still not convinced any of this was real. There was part of me that expected-hoped-I was going to wake up any minute back in my own comfortable bed, newly appreciative of the many luxuries and privileges of my former life. Like some fucked up version of
It’s a Wonderful Life or something.
Well, Clarence could pop out any time now, because he had definitely made his point.
No bumbling angel came to rescue me from my new reality, though, so I lay on my side and curled up, trying to ignore the banging on the ceiling above me and the continuing sounds of the argument from further down the hall. It brought back some less than treasured childhood memories, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor kid whose cries were going unattended. Guess humans and shifters had some things in common, after all. It figured it would be the shitty ones.
My mind was racing with all the problems that had suddenly fallen into my lap, demanding solutions I just didn’t have. Not now, maybe not ever. One way or another, I would have to at least try, but that could wait for the morning. It would have to. I really didn’t have anything left in me now but incredulity.
Incredulity and that gnawing pit in my stomach that could only come from my apparently dormant wolf, as if I had any control over the fact that our intended mates-the ones who’d initiated this bond only I seemed affected by-had turned their backs on us entirely. For that matter, she was the one to blame, but there was nothing rational about a wolf on the full moon.
Especially not one who couldn’t even be bothered to make an appearance if our lives depended on it.
* * *
By the time morning came, the apartment complex was surprisingly quiet. I wasn’t sure if that meant my neighbors had killed each other or someone had called the police and I’d slept through it, but somehow, I had actually managed to sleep. Not that I felt any more rested when I finally dragged myself out of bed.
I decided to see exactly how bad the bathroom was, since I was desperately in need of a shower. When I saw the state of the grimy tub and the gnat graveyard behind the light fixtures, I wasn’t so sure I would be cleaner after the shower. Add cleaning supplies to the list of shit I would have to spend my limited funds on.