Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
I climb onto the bus and literally sigh with relief when Declan hands me my cell phone.
“You’ve got it that bad, huh?” he says.
I don’t really know how to answer that. My entire life is on my phone. My existence in any way beyond surface level is pretty much exclusively in a digital space, so yeah. I guess I have it bad. I hold down the power button, then find a place to sit and wait impatiently for it to load.
“If you stay, you’ll get used to it,” Declan says. “You’ll like it better. Everything is better without them.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” I tell him.
“It’s true. People talk more, they learn more, they travel more, and they fuck more without them. Technology has lured us into existing complacently in sort of a half-life, fighting out natural instincts and urges because we can find something else almost good enough on a screen in our living rooms. Look aroundeveryone got their phones back, and you’re the only one who has yours in your hands.”
Luca sits beside me and throws his arm around my shoulders. “You should put your phone down. Have a drink instead.”
“Let’s watch more of Teagan’s naked book videos,” Brady says.
Everyone laughs but me. “I will jump out of this bus.”
“Wait, go back,” River says. “Declan, did you just say if she stayed? Is she staying?”
“That’s up to her,” he says.
“I can’t,” I say. “I have to go home. I have”
I have what, exactly? I don’t have any friends. I don’t have a boyfriend or whatever Hunter was. I won’t even have a place to live in a couple of weeks. If you ask my family, I don’t have a job, either. I mean, fuck. I probably don’t have a car anymore. I’m sure it’s been towed from that parking garage by now.
“my sister.”
“Your older sister who’s kicking you out and getting married in a few months?” Declan says. “What does she need from you?”
“I don’thow do you know all of that?”
“I make it a point to find out all I can about a person before I bring them to my home, Teagan,” he replies flippantly before heading upstairs.
“What do we need to do to convince you to stay?” River asks.
“Maybe a repeat of the other night in the parlor,” Hazel says.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say.
“Is that all it’ll take?” Luca asks. “Really?”
“I’m kidding,” I say. “I really can’t stay. I mean, what am I going to do?”
“Be with us,” River says. “Be a family. That’s all you have to do.”
“We’ll take care of you, Teagan. You won’t have to worry about anything,” Luca says.
“Tell me the thing you were going to tell me in the woods, and maybe I’ll stay.”
“Um. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why is that?” I ask. “I told you my thing.”
“Because I believe in looking forward, not backward.”
I raise an eyebrow and bite back a smile while the rest of them laugh.
“Do you now?”
“Yep.”
“What thing did you tell him?” River asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Apparently, we’re looking forward, so it doesn’t matter.”
“She told me her origin story,” Luca says, pulling me into his lap. “Or part of it, at least.”
“Oh, you mean what landed her here on the what did Brady call it?” Hazel asks.
Rhett laughs. “Oh, it was the fucking rolling island of misfit toys or some shit.”
“That was it.”
“I don’t think you’re a misfit toy,” Luca says into my ear.
“River says you break all of your toys.”
“You seem to be holding up okay,” he says. “Don’t leave me, Teagan.”
“Would you cry if I died?”
“I’ll cry like a fucking baby if you go home.”
“Luca, are you giving her enough space? You know you can’t ” River starts, trailing off.
“I did what you said,” he tells her. “I gave her space. She came to me.”
She gives him the side-eye, then looks at me.
“I did,” I tell her. “I want him.”
“Don’t go home tonight,” he says. “Let’s go out somewhere alone. You look so pretty.”
“How? Won’t people recognize you?”
“Nah,” he says. “I’ll wear my coat.”
He’s charming as fuck.
He shaved earlier, too. I place my hand on the side of his now-smooth face and miss the stubble already. He’s got a backward hat on, and his tattoos are just barely visible at the neckline of his hoodie.
He almost looks like a normal twenty-two-year-old guy. Except I saw him that night in the woods, and I know exactly what he is. The arms wrapped around me now are the same ones that held me back while Layla bled out in the backyard. The green eyes looking into mine are the same ones that belong to the man I thought was going to kill me when I ran away from him in the woods but forced me to my knees instead.
Declan told me his origin story, too.
Still, he’s the perfect trapthe perfect monster.
But maybe I’m the perfect trap for him, too, and I can make him better. It’ll be romantic.
“Hey,” he says. “Are you going to answer me? What are you thinking about?”
“I’m wondering if I can fuck the crazy out of you.”
He laughs. “God damn. You are black licorice, aren’t you? You’re going to kill me.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.