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  Bile rises in my throat and my head begins to spin.

  The entire room is coated in blood. It's everywhere: floors, walls, even the ceiling. It's splattered everywhere, just everywhere, all over fucking everything. My eyes are wide now, and my heart is beating so loud I can hear it in my skull.

  “Don't look, just don't look at it,” Dax is shouting, tears streaming down his face. The world goes silent. There are two bodies on the floor, two female bodies, naked, bloody, beaten, blonde. Either of them could be Naomi. Neither of them could. A line of a song slides through my skull.

  To find you, only to lose you, even the devil couldn't think up a hell worse than that. I abused you, when I should've held you, and only the truth will set us free.

  I turn to my right and vomit, all over the back of the captain's chair. The barefoot girl climbs the steps behind me and stands with her hand on the railing and her chin lifted in the air.

  “I knew it,” she whispers. “He got here first.”

  And then there are men in uniform, dragging me and Dax and the girl back, pulling us out of the blood, away from the scent of copper and pain. My first instinct is to fight, and I end up elbowing a cop in the face. They cuff me and throw me in the back of a squad car, but I still have a first row seat to what's going on in front of me.

  One body goes on a stretcher, the other in a body bag. I don't know which is which, and it's killing me.

  This can't be happening. It just can't. I can't discover Naomi only to lose her. How fucked up is that? And she can't be dead, not yet, not with that pain she's carrying around. She deserves someone to show her a good time first, show her that life isn't all bad. Maybe I'm not the one, but maybe I am. How the fuck are either of us supposed to know, to be happy? If she is gone, I get the feeling that I am really and truly screwed. And I also know that I don't care because without her on this earth, nothing else will matter. Not even me.

  Blue and red lights flash as the ambulances speed away. Well, one speeds, one goes slow. That's the one that scares the shit out of me. I drop my head to the back of the seat, and I scream. It echoes out the open window and ricochets around the lot.

  In the midst of the gathering crowd around me, somebody smiles.

  To be continued...

  Dear Reader,

  I want to apologize for the cliff-hanger. It's super screwed up, and I'm sorry. Unfortunately, not everything gets to be tied up in a pretty bow, especially not a story as fucked up as this. What I can promise you is that you'll get an ending … eventually. Check for the second book in the series, coming soon. It's a real doozy, but I promise you answers.

  Peace and love.

  C.M.

  P.S. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story, and I look forward to sharing the rest of this journey with you. Readers imbue words with magic, and I can't thank you enough for that. <3

  If you enjoyed this, you might like the Never say Never Trilogy.

  Excerpt Included!

  1

  Rick is a perfectly nice guy.

  But not for me.

  Rick is the kind of guy you can take home to your family, show off, and know that at the end of the day, he'll be there for you. I'm not into guys like Rick. I should be, but I'm not. I think there's something wrong with me. I need a guy like Rick to put me on the straight and narrow, to help me stop doing the things I shouldn't be doing and start doing the things I should.

  Right now, my back is to a wall and I'm kissing the neck of a guy I don't know. My therapist says it's because I have 'daddy' issues. Like that's supposed to mean something to me. How can I have daddy issues when I barely knew the prick? He didn't walk out on me and mom like my therapist thinks. She thinks that because I've never told her the truth. My dad died right in front of my eyes, called out my name seconds before the light went out of his face and left him cold. That's all I remember about him. Other than that, my mind is a blank, a series of shadowy pictures without words. They don't make any fucking sense.

  The guy I'm kissing unbuttons his pants. I think about telling him to use a condom, but I just don't feel like it. I'm on the pill anyway. He thrusts into me while I'm watching Rick through a crack in the door. He's drinking punch, not alcohol, and smiling with big, wide teeth in a face that's handsome, but not too handsome. Rick's the kind of guy that your friends compliment you on, tell you he's gorgeous, but they never try to sleep with him. The ones they really want, the dangerous ones, the ones with pasts that burn like fire and melt everything around them … Those are the guys that I always seem to fall for. The one I'm having sex with right now is one of those. I don't even know his name.

  “I love you,” the guy says over and over, and I roll my eyes. I've heard it before, a hundred times, and I just don't want to hear it anymore. I pretend to have an orgasm, moaning and groaning and scratching his back, and all the while, I'm watching Rick. We have a date tomorrow night that I think I'm going to cancel. I thought maybe I'd take Rick out, see how chivalrous he really was, but tonight, he's wearing khaki pants and a red sweater. I don't date guys like Rick.

  The guy I'm fucking finishes and tells me how great I am. Then he disappears and I don't see him again, not that night or any other. I light a cigarette and leave the room before any of the drunken idiots at the party stumble in and find me there with my panties around my ankles. I step out of them and stuff them in my pocket, aware that my skirt is too short and that my ass is hanging out. I just can't seem to find it in myself to care.

  “Hey,” Rick says, intercepting me before I can reach the front door. “We still on for tomorrow night?” He looks me up and down, and I can see that he's curious about my disheveled appearance, my mussy hair and my swollen lips, but he doesn't ask about it. I don't think he even gives it a second thought. Rick doesn't know that girls like me exist. He's heard about them on TV, maybe even masturbates to them, but he doesn't really believe that they exist in this world or any other. I really should keep my date with Rick, go out with him, and grow up.

  “I can't,” I say, biting my lip seductively and touching his cashmere sweater with a shaking hand. I don't know why it's shaking, but I don't like it, so I pull it back and let it fall to my side. I blow cigarette smoke in Rick's face which is rude, but that I do anyway. There's a monster inside of me, eating little bits of me everyday, and I can't seem to stop it. It makes me do things I don't want to do, say things I don't want to say. It makes me tell Rick that I've got to study for a test that he really believes I have.

  I kiss him on the lips and leave an orange-red stain before I walk out the door and down the front steps. People wave at me as I go by and say they'll see me around, but I don't really know who any of them are, so I avoid their stares and their friendly smiles. It's all fake, just a big load of shit that I can't buy into or I'll die. If I ever believe in something again, and it turns out to be false, then not only will my body crumble beneath me, but so will my soul. I'll disintegrate, disappear into the wind and blow away. I'll be nothing. I'll blank out and the energy of who I was will just go away, melt into the ground and come back as something unimportant, like a dandelion or a caterpillar. I can't find it in my heart to care.

  I walk back to the dorms because I don't have a car. My roommate isn't home which doesn't surprise me. She's in love with another girl, one that's straight as an arrow. They have sleepovers in her dorm room and 'practice' kissing one another like they're in high school or something. That's fine with me because it means I have the room all to myself, gives me a chance to be alone. I feel most comfortable that way. When you're alone, there's nobody there to hurt you or let you down. It feels too good to have that guarantee of solitude.

  I fall on my back on the bed and try to breathe through the tears that come to me unbidden. I don't want them, never asked for them. I couldn't even tell you what I was crying over or why. I just do. Every night, I lay here and I try to find something in myself to live for. Every night, I fail and wonder if I need a guy like Rick to show me the way.
But then, I'm a big girl, and a feminist, too, so why do I think a guy could save my soul?

  I never thought to wonder if I was looking at it the wrong way, if maybe it wasn't a guy that I was looking for, just a person. And maybe I didn't need them to save my soul, just to give me the other half of it. Maybe that was it?

  2

  The next morning I wake up and have to force myself out of bed. It's a weekend which makes things so much worse. On days when I have class, I have a purpose, an obligation that I have to fulfill. On weekends, I just wait around for something to happen. Today, my roommate comes home early looking happier than usual. I wonder if she scored with the other chick, but I hope not. If so, then she's setting herself up for failure because that girl, whose name I don't know, is the type that grows up and looks for a guy like Rick. They get married and have babies and think they're happy because that's what people like Rick and this other girl do. They think they're happy because they don't know any better. I do. Not because I know what it's like to be happy, but because I know what it's like to be miserable. If you live your whole life in the darkness, then you don't have any trouble recognizing the light.

  “There's a party at one of the frat houses tonight, do you want to go?”

  “Which one?” I ask. Lacey, my roommate, doesn't know because she doesn't give a shit about frat houses. She doesn't give a shit about men at all. I wish I was like her. Maybe if I was into girls, I'd have an easier time falling in love with someone that wasn't a complete piece of shit? But then again, Rick isn't a complete piece of shit, and I don't want to fall in love with him either.

  Lacey shrugs and takes off her sweater, tossing it over her computer chair.

  “It's tonight at six, do you want to go?”

  “Any party that starts at six is a party that I'm not interested in,” I tell her as I stand up and stretch. Lacey gives me a weird look, and I notice that my skirt's ridden up a bit. I push it down and gather up some clothes. I feel disgusting. I didn't change last night, and I can feel that guy's sweat all over me.

  “Come with me, please,” Lacey begs, and I know she's afraid to go alone because her girlfriend might ignore her and run off with some frat boy. It's happened before. “I'll give you twenty bucks.”

  “Keep your money,” I tell her as I grab a towel and the basket that holds my shampoo. “I'll go, okay? I'll meet you here tonight.”

  “Five thirty,” Lacey says to me with a smile as she brushes a comb through her pretty, blonde hair. “I don't want to be late.” I try not to roll my eyes and tell her that nobody gives a fuck if you're late to a frat party.

  “Sure,” I say as I leave the room in a hurry, rushing to get to the bathroom before everyone else does. There's this communal atmosphere that descends over the room when there's more than three girls in the bathroom at one time. I don't understand it, and it makes me uncomfortable. I never join in the conversation and have to use the stall at the very end, the one with the broken faucet, so I don't have to look at them looking at me and wondering what the hell is wrong.

  I get to the bathroom just in time and manage to shower, get dressed, and put on makeup before anybody else comes in. When they do, they're all wearing blue and yellow face paint and talking about the game. I don't know if it's football or basketball or baseball, but what I do know is that it's an integral part of their lives that I don't understand. I leave as quickly as I can and head back to my room, toss my stuff on the floor next to my bed, and stand there for a very, very long time.

  When I spy the book on the desk next to my bed, I feel a sense of relief. Reading. I can get lost in a world and spend days there. Besides, reading a book gives me a goal. It's that sense of purpose that puts a temporary bandage over my uncertainty and lets me waste away the rest of the day without anymore negative thoughts.

  Books by C.M. Stunich

  The Seven Wicked Series

  First

  Second

  Third

  Fourth

  Fifth

  Sixth

  Seventh

  Houses Novels

  The House of Gray and Graves

  The House of Hands and Hearts and Hair

  The House of Sticks and Bones

  The Huntswomen Trilogy

  The Feed

  The Hunt

  The Throne

  Indigo Lewis Novels

  Indigo & Iris

  Indigo & The Colonel

  Indigo & Lynx

  Never Say Never Trilogy & Never Too Late Series

  Tasting Never

  Finding Never

  Keeping Never

  Never Can Tell

  Triple M Series

  Losing Me, Finding You

  Loving Me, Trusting You

  A Duet

  Paint Me Beautiful

  Color Me Pretty

  Hard Rock Roots

  Real Ugly

  Stand Alone Novels

  She Lies Twisted

  Hell Inc.

  A Werewolf Christmas ( A Short Story)

  Fuck Valentine's Day (A Short Story)

  Clan of the Griffin Riders: Chryer's Crest

  DeadBorn

  Broken Pasts

  About the Author

  C.M. Stunich was raised under a cover of fog in the area known simply as Eureka, CA. A mysterious place, this strange, arboreal land nursed Caitlin's (yes, that's her name!) desire to write strange fiction novels about wicked monsters, magical trains, and Nemean Lions (Google it!). She currently enjoys drag queens, having too many cats, and tribal bellydance.

  She can be reached at [email protected], and loves to hear from her readers. Ms. Stunich also wrote this biography and has no idea why she decided to refer to herself in the third person.

  Happy reading and carpe diem!

  www.cmstunich.com

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Excerpt of Tasting Never

  More Books By

  About the Author