Freak Show Read Online Free PDF Page B

evening, digging through my makeup bag. Jez was beside me, doing the same. There was more than enough counter space for the both of us.
    “Are you kidding? I’m not missing out on a chance to see how Sin City does a club like The Wicked Kiss.” Jez swept mascara onto her long lashes. Her hair was bound up high on her head in a towel. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
    I lined my eyes with black liner, creating a dramatic cat-eye effect. I paused to paw through my bag, looking for my favorite pale silver shadow. “No, I’m pretty much just scared. I think Arys is letting his history with these vampires cloud his judgment. I’m not sure what I dread more, meeting Jenner or seeing what goes on in his club. Harley was using that place in a blood ring operation. Some twisted shit.”
    Jez carefully applied her trademark red lipstick, pursing her lips to inspect her handy work. “Isn’t Harley’s stuff technically yours now? I mean, you killed him.”
    “Some might say that.” I was hesitant to claim anything of Harley’s as mine. I’d gotten my share. “I don’t want it though. My hands are full as it is.”
    “Better make sure the new owner knows that.”
    “I intend to, when I’m not doing damage control for Arys. He’s stubborn, but this time he’s taken it to a whole new level.” I finished my makeup, refusing when Jez tried to force me to wear red lipstick as well. She thought it went with everything at any time of day. It wouldn’t surprise me if she wore it with PJs as well.
    To appease her, I agreed to a light pink lip-gloss that smelled like candy. She huffed at me like the snooty cat she sometimes was but relented. After layering my lashes in volumizing mascara, I stared at my hair and shrugged.
    “Leave it down,” Jez suggested, eyeing me through the mirror. “It’s so long and beautiful. It looks really bad ass down.”
    “Thanks.” I pulled a brush through the tangled ash blonde mess until it lay smooth against my back. “Sometimes I think about hacking it all off and dying it black.” Since trimming off the black tips I used to have, I hadn’t added any color to it.
    “Oh God, don’t do that.” Jez was aghast. “That’s too drastic. And I don’t have to be a shrink to tell you what that kind of sudden change often means.”
    “That I’m in need of control and can find it only in insignificant things like my hair style because I’m too neurotic to keep my shit together.” I smiled, but I wasn’t joking.
    “Yeah, exactly that.” She turned to face me, a serious light in her green eyes. “Please don’t go off the rails on me, Alexa. I can’t lose another friend like that.”
    I reached to touch her hand, a brief but poignant connection. “I won’t. I promise.”
    She was thinking about Kale Sinclair, our friend and my one time lover. The three of us had been a tight knit group for several years. Recently, that had unraveled, primarily because of Kale’s inability to maintain his sanity. Five hundred years of vampire hell could do that to a person.
    “You know I’m always here for you, right? No matter what.” Pulling me into a hug, Jez held tight. She hummed with pent up emotion that sought to escape her restraint.
    “I know.” I breathed in her earthy Were scent. It was comforting. “I love you, Jezzy.”
    Things had been tough for us both lately. She had lost the woman she loved. We had both lost Kale to his delusions. Worst of all, we’d lost our illusions: safety, peace, self-contentment. Gone. All of it.
    “Ok, enough sappy shit.” Jez pulled away and tugged the towel off, letting her damp golden locks tumble over her shoulders. “Should I flat iron or let it curl naturally?”
    “Curls, definitely. I can never understand why women with curls straighten their hair.” I studied my poker straight tresses. I was more than a little envious of Jez’s gorgeous curls.
    “Go get dressed,” she commanded, grabbing the blow dryer. “Your boys will hit