Velvet by Temple West
For email updates on the author, click here.
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
Dedicated to Lara Croft. Thank you for kicking such an incredible amount of ass.
1
FIERY TORNADO OF DOOM
“By the suits and ties of Tim Gunn, I swear I will hunt you down and eat you for breakfast.”
Above me, the flock of birds took off in a riot of indignant squawks while I sat horrified and covered in bird shit.
At least, I thought it was bird shit. I dabbed at my cheek with a hunk of rock moss, though a closer examination revealed nothing resembling feces, avian or otherwise. I briefly considered licking the moss to see if it was, in fact, bird urine—so I could be confident in my bird rage—but quickly ruled this out as totally insane. I sniffed cautiously at it instead, and it smelled pretty much like you'd expect: woodsy, and a bit like dirt.
Rain, then.
“I’m sorry, birds!” I called after them, fully aware that I looked crazy. “That one was my bad.”
They just honked at me irritably.
Well, I’d tried.
This part of the mountain was deserted; quiet except for the understandably irritated pigeons and a musical breeze, which was picking up into a full-on wind. My sketchbook whipped open, pages fluttering back and forth wildly. I slammed the cover shut and wrapped my arms around it to protect the design I’d been working on for the past three hours. Above me, the scattered cloud wisps from a moment ago multiplied dramatically, spilling like ink stains across the sky. The sudden weather change was weird, but I’d only been here two days—as far as I knew, storms popped up like this all the time. The thought of trudging back to the ranch in the rain ignited the acidy rage-fire in my stomach, but the safety of my art supplies was more important than not wanting to be anywhere near my aunt and uncle.
That’s actually why I was out here—Rachel, in a seriously misguided attempt to be comforting, had gone into mom-mode and hugged me. I'd dodged her outstretched arms and escaped into the woods to let my gut-response anger simmer back down to a nonexplosive level. Figured it was better to have a meltdown in the middle of the forest than the middle of their living room. After a mile or two along what seemed more like a deer path than an actual trail, I’d found this gigantic rock and climbed up to sketch, paying little attention to the time or, apparently, the weather, which was beginning to spit a misty rain.
Up until two days ago, I’d lived by the ocean my entire life so the rain was nothing new, but the forest was. I was used to being home with my mom, in our town, on our street, wrapped up in our tiny little bubble of suburban normal. Or, well, normal enough, I guess, until my parents died. Separately, of course, from the usual sorts of things, nothing too dramatic. Just life, being a bitch. My dad’s death was quick, mostly painless, but I was so young when it happened that I didn’t really understand for a long time that he was gone, and he was never coming back. My mom’s was more recent—dull by comparison—but by the end she couldn’t even speak to me, and she never said good-bye.
That was four days ago.
But I couldn’t think about that now. My basic survival strategy was to keep my mind as blank as possible. Eat, sleep, sketch, repeat.