Novels by abbysseries

I didn't turn to look at him right away.I took another sip of my champagne and looked at the room and let him stand there and thought about whether I wanted to have this conversation at all.I decided I didn't."You have three seconds to walk away," I said.He made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. It came out wrong. Rattling. Like something loose moving around in his chest.He didn't move.He leaned closer instead."There was a fire," he said.My hand stopped moving the glass to my mouth.Just stopped. Completely. Like my body had heard something my brain hadn't finished processing yet and had decided to pause everything until it caught up."Sector Four," Syris said. Quiet. Unhurried. Like we were talking about the weather. "Ten years ago. Electrical fire. That's what the report said."I kept my eyes on the room.I kept my face still.I was very good at keeping my face still. My father had made sure of that. Don't react Ma

The woman pulled the laces tight and I made a sound like I'd been punched.Because honestly. That's what it felt like.The thing under the dress wasn't fabric. It was body armor. Stiff and heavy and so tight around my ribs that breathing became something I had to think about instead of something that just happened. Every breath was a negotiation. A small careful conversation between me and my own lungs about how much air we were actually going to get.Not much. The answer was not much.And on top of the armor was the dress.Dark red velvet. Heavy. It touched the floor all the way around and the weight of it pulled at my shoulders constantly like a gentle reminder that this was not my life and these were not my clothes and I had absolutely no business being inside either of them.I kept thinking about my jacket.My canvas jacket hanging on the back of my door in Sector Four. Worn through at both elbows. Smelled like engine grease and the particular dust of the outer rim. I had owned it

The steel door didn't just open.It flew off its hinges.The bang of it hitting the wall was so loud I felt it in my chest. Flashlight beams cut through the dust everywhere at once, wild and bright, making the shadows jump.I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for a bullet."Clear the door!" Tor's voice. Raw and rough. "Move!"Boots hit the floor all around us. Heavy and fast, not careful at all. The flashlights dragged over the broken glass and stopped on the dead man in the chair before finding Varek and me on the floor. Tor stepped into the light. His vest was wet with blood that wasn't his."Lawn is quiet," he said, spitting dust off his lips. "Two down in the hall. Three outside."Varek shifted.He stood up, grabbed a fist of my gown, and pulled me up with it. Not careful. Not rough either. Just the way you'd pick something up that needed moving.My knees buckled the second I was upright. My bare feet found something wet and warm and I went sideways.Varek caught me by the waist.H

The gun didn't move.Neither did I.I stared down the barrel and my lungs just stopped. The draft from the hallway hit my bare skin and I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything except the fact that the distance between me and that gun was not enough.Varek didn't shoot.But he didn't lower it either."Push the door," he said.His voice was completely flat. No anger in it. No anything.I put my palms against the cold steel and pushed. The hinges groaned like they were complaining about it.Varek lowered the gun. He let out one slow breath. Fresh blood dripped from his split knuckles onto the concrete floor."Inside," he said. "Close it."I stepped over the threshold and pulled the door shut behind me. The lock clicked. The smell hit me all at once — bleach fighting a losing battle against something much worse underneath it. I knew what that smell meant. I'd grown up around enough of it to know.Varek turned his back on me.He walked to a metal tray against the wall, grabbed a cloth

The SUV didn't bounce over the flooded road.It just plowed straight through the standing water like it didn't care. Like nothing on this road could stop it.I pressed my cheek against the window. The glass was cold enough to hurt. My wrists were still throbbing — deep and hot, the kind of pain that reminded you it was there every time you forgot about it for a second.Outside the window the city changed.The yellow streetlights of the outer rim disappeared. The sagging buildings. The smell of fried food and wet concrete that I'd grown up with my whole life. All of it just — gone. Replaced by neon. Then glass. Then towers so tall they blocked out the sky.I watched it all go by and kept my face very still.Tor didn't say a word the whole drive. He just sat in the front with both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. He hadn't looked at me once since we left the Obsidian Club."Where are we going," I said."Home," he said.That was it. Just that one word.The car started climbin

The finger was still on the floor.I couldn't stop looking at it.I knew it was his. I knew it the way you knew things about the people you loved without having to think about it. The thickness of his knuckle. The old burn scar from when I was four years old and he'd grabbed a hot iron off the stove to stop it falling on me. I knew every mark on my father's hands.That was his hand.The bile hit the back of my throat. I swallowed it down hard.The man — Varek — had moved to the desk. He dropped a thick leather book onto the granite and the sound of it made me flinch. He didn't look at me. He just stood there flipping it open like I wasn't bleeding on his floor."Your father was a thief," he said. Flat. Bored. Like he was reading from a list.I shifted my weight. My knees were killing me. The zip-tie had cut deep enough that my hands were wet. "He didn't steal anything. We barely paid rent.""Four million," Varek said.The number didn't make sense. I turned it over in my head. Four mil