Read Through Novels & Stories

EVAN The message stays on my screen like a bruise you can’t stop pressing. DELAY NOTED. ADAPTATION IN PROGRESS. Leah has read it three times now without moving. Her eyes track the letters with the careful stillness of someone watching a snake in tall grass—knowing if she reacts too suddenly, it might strike.

Chapter 2: Interrupted and caught Zoe's POV The summer sun seeped in through my window as I laid on my bed, legs spread as I scrolled through t****k. The memories of last night's events replayed in my head like a broken record, sending another wave of heat through me. But I couldn't act out yet. At least not now. Just as I swiped another video, my door was pushed open. “Zoe,” Leo called, walking in.

Enjoy

Made a stressful process painless. Gerald read every single one. Then he went back to the top and read them again, slowly, moving his lips a little as he did when he was concentrating. He checked the dates on the reviews. He opened the firm's address in a map and zoomed in on a small office building in a business park. He looked at the photographs of the lobby. He went back to the biography and read it a third time.

She sat across from James with the laptop open between them and read the clause again in the morning light. She had read it three times the night before and had felt each reading differently. The first was shock. The second was recognition. The third was the particular quality of something settling into its correct position after a long time in the wrong one. This reading, the fourth, was something else entirely. It was grief.

The code was clear: H-U-L-L--S-P-L-I-T-T-I-N-G. C-O-L-E--D-O-W-N. L-E-O--N-O-T--B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G. T-H-E--I-R-O-N--K-I-N-G--I-S--A-T--T-H-E--D-O-O-R.

My stomach tightens as I return to the beginning. It’s a ledger. I frown as I watch it, my eyes rolling over the words, I’m reading but none of it makes sense. It’s not computing to me. There’s payments going out and coming in, loads of names I don’t recognize, they don’t even look like you could pronounce any of them. No matter how far I scroll, it’s the same thing. “What am I looking at?” I whisper, frowning at the ledger. The words do a little shiver, and when I blink, it’s gone. I’m about to say something about it when something at the top catches my attention.

Babysitter 2 I inhaled sharply. What should I do? Fuuuuckkk! Keep thinking Kira! 𝘋𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘴. I thought to myself. Relax and think. Think. Think. . In the end, I couldn't think of words to say so I looked away, feeling my face continuously pouring off sweat--if that's even possible. I glanced up at him but he is still looking down on me with his unreadable expression.

"Come closer Alex." "Sir?" "Come closer," He repeated slowly. Alex took a step forward. "Closer." Another step. "Closer Alex don't make me come to you." Alex took a deep sigh and walked towards him. "Now, look at my face, tell me what you see?" Alex actually saw a lot of things, eyebrows he found too bushy, mustard at his chin and whatever whitish substance was at his moustache. "Anger," Alex murmured. "Louder!"

I stare at my computer screen as the thin line blinks for me to start typing. My heart is beating a mile a minute and my head is on a rampage. I shut my eyes tight and take a deep breath to keep myself from going crazy. In and out. And then it starts, just as I remember it. The words slip through my fingers like a song I know all too well. One word after the other, never ending. It's been so long that the feeling is so alien. I missed this.