SHUDDERVILLE FIVE Read Online Free PDF Page A

Will, we don’t have a life.” She frowned, and he could see it in her eyes—the big question. How long? How much longer would she have to endure this punishment? When was her prince going to come and rescue her? Her knight in shining armor? How much longer would she have to suffer with her king-ogre-husband in the castle tower?
    He met her angry, impenetrable gaze. “If you leave, I’ll kill myself.”
    She seemed appalled by this admission. “Do you realize how disturbing and selfish and horrible that is?” She rubbed her temples. “It’s a form of emotional blackmail. You’re giving me a migraine.”
    “Well? Are you going to leave me?”
    “Why are we even having this conversation?”
    “Because, Charlotte, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about leaving me. I knew it. I knew something was wrong. I’ve known about it for months now, but I didn’t want to admit it. And look—you’re not even contradicting me now.”
    “Only because I’m speechless.” She sighed heavily, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Why should I even bother talking to you?”
    “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
    “Really?” Charlotte retreated back into the living room, sat on the floor, raised her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged herself.
    Will landed drunkenly on the floor beside her and rested his bottle on the rug, twisting it into the weave to root it. Then he ran his hand over Charlotte’s shoulder. She shivered and twitched like a young colt beneath his loathsome touch. Her skin was the color of coffee mixed with cream.
    “What’s wrong with us goes deeper than me working late at the lab,” he said, his hand wandering up into her hair, his fingers playing with her auburn locks. She wore those tight-fitting, deep-pocketed jeans he loved and a black silk blouse. Sexy. She was so gorgeous tonight. He loved her crooked smile. He loved her small aristocratic nose and her fine-boned face.
    “The truth,” she whispered. “The truth is you don’t know how to love anyone.”
    He drew back as if he’d been burned. “What do you mean?”
    “You’re in love with the idea of me,” she said forcefully. “You love ideas and theories, Will. You don’t really know how to love another human being. A flesh-and-blood person with flaws and mixed emotions and moods. It’s too messy for you. It’s not elegant enough, like your precious equations.”
    He touched the lip of the bottle to his front teeth and gazed out the window at the moonlit icicles hanging from the neighbor’s rooftop. “I’ll come home early from now on,” he said.
    She burst out laughing. Her eyes were threaded with tiny red veins, as if she’d been crying. “Right. Like that’s going to happen,” she said.
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “No. You always say you’ll come home early. And you never do.”
    “ Always , Charlotte? I always say that? Never , Charlotte? I never change? I’m incapable of change?” he said defensively.
    She gave him a punishing look and stormed out of the room.
    He closed his eyes and listened to the snow landing on the roof. It barely made a sound—just the whispering of ice crystals. It was like some beautiful, smothering dream you couldn’t wake up from. Charlotte was right, he didn’t understand anything about her—she was a stranger with violent mood swings and body issues and secret crushes on scruffy-looking love-struck boys, and a whole lot of baggage from the other side of the country. Will didn’t understand a thing.
    He had managed to wish this moment into being over and over again. He and Charlotte had had this very same argument a dozen times now. Only she didn’t know it. For her it was always unique. For him, it was just another chance to get it right. But he seemed to botch everything. He would have to do it all over again. Tobias had warned him not to subject himself to the prototype again. They didn’t know what kinds of effects it would have on a