Read Online Disrupted by Claire Vale - Free Book Online Page A

alone yet.
    There was still Jack.
    Except, I was pretty sure Jack murdered Chris. And even if he had been stamped and couldn’t help himself, I’d still be left with a boyfriend designer engineered to commit heinous deeds.
    But maybe that’s something I could live with. I mean, it wasn’t really Jack’s fault, was it?
    My mum need never know.
    Oh crap, the priest marrying us had certainly better never know. Our darling brats would need all the help God could give them with a could-be-would-be-murderer for a father.
    Except, I’d dumped Jack, hadn’t I?
    Or had he dumped me?
    An ultimatum had been issued, that much I was certain of- and thoroughly trampled in his haste to clobber Chris. Not that he had. Yet. There was still a small possibility that whatever Drustan was fixing and undoing might erase everything. Including the whole woods incident. And I’d never even issue that silly ultimatum.
    But I would always know. Given the choice, Jack had not chosen me. On a scale of one to ten, how bad was that exactly?
    Grrr. How desperate was I?
    This was all my parents fault. I’d been perfectly happy in Mayfair, before... before...
    I was suddenly spitting mad, hissing steam through my nostrils kind of mad. I don’t know where it came up from. Usually I’m quite even tempered. Really. It was as if I’d been brimming to the top, and sad desperation was the drop that burst the seams.
    I felt lost, alone, empty, scared.
    But mostly there was this venomous rage thickening in my tummy, noxious red fumes gagging at the base of my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I had to swallow back hot vomit. My head was throbbing.
    “Willow?”
    I blinked, totally confused when I saw Chris striding up to me. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, of course. I had followed him in here.
    “Everything alright? You look pasty.”
    I had to work the bile loose in my throat before attempting to talk.
    By which time Chris was standing in front of me, frowning. “Did something happen? You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
    I stared at him blankly for a few seconds.
    And then I said it.
    Just like that.
    After so many months of refusing to think the thought spawned straight from the hole called hell, I said, “I think my parents are getting divorced.”
    Chris didn’t say anything for the longest time. He just looked at me. And I looked at him.
    Then, “That stinks.”
    Yes, I thought miserably, it really does stink.
    Tears swelled in my eyes. Strangely enough, the nausea in my tummy let up a bit. The red haze choking my brain eased. I slid down the pillar until I was balancing on my haunches.
    Chris came down with me, even though he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else than here. Even back in our time, being sliced and diced by Jack’s blade.
    Urgh! Did I always have to come back to that? And while I was there, how, in the name of all that is Holy, had I attached myself (quite literally by the lips, numerous times) to the one boy in town who had cold-blooded killer stamped in his veins?
    “And my parents haven’t even bothered to discuss any of it with me,” I said hoarsely. “I mean, honestly, does my mum really think I’ll simply wake up one day and forget I ever had a father? Which shouldn’t be all that hard, considering I never see him anymore.”
    Chris made a sympathetic noise. Actually, it might have been the start of a word, but I was too far gone in my bitter rambling for interruptions.
    “Why did they even get married in the first place if they weren’t going to stick to it?” I plunged on. “They’ve made me stick to my piano lessons just because I took it up on a whim a few years ago. Where is the fairness in this world? It’s not as if I took an oath before God to play and play until rigor mortis us doth part.”
    I dashed away a tear and took a deep breath. “I wish- I just wish I could do something to make it all go away. I wish I had someone like Drustan to swoop into my life and make the bad things