I lick the cut on my bottom lip, savoring the feel of my tongue against the tender wound.
Who knows…I might even bump into one of my little pets.
Chapter 27
Bastian
“It’s never going to stop, Bash,” Sybil’s whines. “Never, ever, ever!”
“You’re being childish.” I look up at her over the top of my doorstop of a book. “The rain will stop. The sun will come out again. It always does.”
“Not this time.” She lifts her head from her arms, propping her chin on top of them as she stares bleakly out the window at the gray afternoon. “It’s gonna keep going until I die.”
“Not unless you’re dying tomorrow.” I lick my thumb, turn another ofPamela’smany, many,manypages. It’s so hard to focus on Samuel Richardson’s story. Probably because it feels more like a damn lecture.
I despise the amount of words in this book. I get it, okay? Pamela isn’t going to give it up for just anybody. Dude even hid in her closet, and she isn’t giving in.
So damn what?
I’d rather be reading Poe, but Evelyn refuses to keep his books in the house. She nearly caned the hide off my backsidewhen she caught me sneaking a peek atThe Pit and the Pendulumat the library.
That was the last time I was allowed to go with her.
Now Sybil and I hardly ever leave the house, except for our annual check ups and the very rare occasions where Evelyn’s deemed our behavior satisfactory enough to take us to the pond so we can watch the ducks swimming around.
We’re not allowed to feed them.
Nor may we speak to anyone else we encounter.
The latter is forbidden. The former, a reward reserved for only truly angelic beings. Unlikely we’ll ever get to experience it, seeing as Evelyn considers us the spawn of Satan.
“Think she’ll let us build an ark?” Sybil mumbles mournfully from the window.
I snap the book closed. “What are you on about now, Billy?”
“It’s flooding.”
I go stand beside her to watch the puddles forming.
She rolls her head and gives me a sorrowful glance before looking outside again. “We’ll have to take the animals, two by two, and then maybe God will?—“
I cuff the back of her head. “Shut it!” I hiss. “If she hears you talking like that, no way you’ll see the sun again.”
Sybil clutches the back of her head like I lay a hammer to her skull, scowling up at me. “Now I won’t let you on my ark. You’ll drown with the rest of the sinners.”
I gape at her as she storms out of the reading room of our dark, suffocating townhouse. If she keeps on like that, Evelyn’s going to find out Sybil watches television on Sunday mornings when she’s out doing grocery shopping.
Why on earth my little sister watches the bible network instead of cartoons like a regular kid, I’ll never know.
Television is a waste of time, anyway. I’d rather read books.
I grimace down at the tome in my hands.
Okay, I’d rather readgoodbooks.
I can follow Sybil’s progress through the house as she stomps her little feet. And any second now, that sound is going to bring Evelyn down from her ivory tower in the attic.
Then we’rebothdeep in the shit.
