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Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEENA Dangerous PathNow you might think that Bryony lives alone because there was never mention of a roommate. It would be a wise thing, true. If those close to her tend to end up as casualties of the cosmos, it would stand to reason that she would choose not to inflict her delightful presence upon anybody else. However, this is Seattle, and as we all know, space is a precious commodity in any big city. Prices are high, and Bryony works arranging flowers at the market, not as the CEO of some prestigious and eyebrow raising company. Not that this is a path that she couldn’t take, because she certainly could if she had the time and the inclination for it, but quite simply, the desire isn’t there. She is happy to be a flower girl and spend her days watching cheerful people (and a few irritated ones) prancing through the market. She likes listening to Eddie as he plays his clever songs, and even sings once in a while. Above all, Bryony likes to be free. She always needs the
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEENHer Fragile HandEddie woke up one morning and realized that he had fallen for Star Girl. He knew that it would come to pass, and although grudgingly displeased with it at first, he soon came to accept the idea. He watched her as she laughed with her friends at the market. He watched as she talked wildly with her hands, explaining something to Chad the Fish Guy. He fantasized about beating up Chad the Fish Guy, out in the parking lot, preferably. When the sun was down and the cops were all looking the other way. What he would really like to do would be to tie him up and throw him off the pier and into the sea, but Eddie realized that was going a little far. A man could dream, however.Speaking of dreams: A man walked by, eating a fresh miniature doughnut from the vender, and stopped abruptly when he heard Eddie play.“I like that song, boy. Did you write it?”“Yes, sir,” Eddie said politely. He could be extremely polite if he wanted to, and something about this ma
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEENI See YouThe girl caught his eye immediately.She was new to running, new to the trail, and her cheeks were rosy in the misty light. There was something about her, something special, a wobbling beacon shining up to the sky, only she wasn’t calling down the stars.She was calling him.And being a man of great appetites he obsessed to satiate, he knew he would answer her. Because, you see, that is the way it works, and has always worked, and this man somehow knew the girl’s whole life had been leading up to this moment.Wonderful. Simply wonderful.
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEENLive A Thousand YearsRikki-Tikki and Syrina were watching a movie. They had reached that lazy part in their relationship where he was allowed to gain a few pounds and she was allowed to wear sweats, and occasionally go without makeup, and throw her hair back in a ponytail. All of this was perfectly acceptable and downright cozy.Although the term used was ‘watching a movie’, it would be more accurate to say a movie was on and they weren’t exactly watching it. They were dishing up bowls of ice cream and kissing in between strawberry spoonfuls, and Rikki-Tikki was telling Syrina about Samoa. He was also asking if she’d like come home with him sometime to meet his family, and Syrina was equally parts excited and nervous. What if they didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like Samoa? What if it all agreed with her so much that she never wanted to return home? How delightful! During this conversation, Rikki-Tikki brought up the subject of Bryony.“Syrina, she is going to
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEENA Delicate GuillotineBryony sobbed all of the way to the hospital, the note crumpled in her hand. Not Syrina. Not her dear, brave and true friend. It would be too cruel. It would be too much.She ran through the hospital doors and up to the front desk.“I am looking for my friend Syrina. Rikki-Tikki said she was here, and I’m so afraid! Is she alive? Is she hurt? Oh, won’t you help me find her?”The receptionist stared at this otherworldly woman whose soul was mixing with tears and spilling out of her ephemeral eyes. She wanted to grab the girl’s mitten-covered hands and tell her stories about faeries and trolls and great green monsters born from gardens. She wanted to ask her if she thought it would hurt terribly when death came to take her, as it most certainly would. Why, perhaps even this very minute! Time is of the essence! The receptionist opened her mouth to speak.“Bryony!”Bryony spun around at the sound of Rikki-Tikki’s voice and grabbed onto his sle
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEENHe Kills AgainFate grumbled and schemed and plotted. Sending an enthusiastic but second rate robber to do a professional killer’s job certainly didn’t seem to work. Now the gloves were off. It was time to call in the big guns.It is time to check in on our murderer.What the murderer really wanted, of course, was Bryony. He did not know her name. He did not know anything about her. She could be a young doll-maker named Cassandra or she could be young man-turned-woman who was originally named Maurice, although he did not quite think so, and he had a fairly decent eye for that sort of thing.But he also wanted to save her, as one saves dessert for a particularly fine reward for a job well done, a job like passing a grueling test at school or surviving this life, and thus he put Bryony away for later.That did absolutely nothing to dispel the fact he wanted to kill now, and to make it good and satiating. One does not necessarily have to have crème brulee to satiate
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEENA SongEddie sat with his back against the cloying floral wallpaper in his apartment. He held Jasmine in his hands, and ran his fingers over her strings as he looked through the window. The moon was extravagant tonight. The stars were full of brilliant luster.His fingers never ceased their movement and with his eyes full of the stars he teased out a song. It was something quite unlike anything else he had written before. It was about death and life and a plant that can heal or kill, respectively. It was a song about making the choice to love when you knew that in the end. . . you would only have . . .. . . empty hands.
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTYBe AwareSyrina wasn’t home when Rikki-Tikki came by, but that was all right. He mostly came to speak to Bryony.“’Sup, girl,” he said, and hugged her. She had spent the morning paying bills and making Very Important Phone Calls and decided to reward herself for the hard work. She was frosting cupcakes and was careful not to get the frosted knife in Rikki Tikki’s dark hair when she hugged him back.“Hello, how are things? Would you like a cupcake?”He would like one, very much, and there was an impromptu cupcake party full of sprinkles and raspberry lemonade and good times and laughter. It was an enjoyable occasion, and funny stories were told, and each had the choice opportunity to see each other as the enchanting and mischievous beings that they had been as small children. But then it was time to get serious.“They found another body, Bryony. A young woman with all of her limbs broken, stashed behind some trees in the park. She had some sort of book shoved down h
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Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Sixty One
CHAPTER SIXTY ONEThere Is No EndLightning did not hit our sweet Bryony. The same time it flashed, a car came spinning out of nowhere, and its headlights were stark and bright and almost blinded our dear girl. Her heart shivered and stopped momentarily, quite knocked out of sorts by the extreme overload, but soon came back to itself and began to beat resolutely.Car doors slammed and feet hurried over to her.“Bryony!” cried out a voice, a familiar voice, a dear and good voice. Bryony raised her head and looked through the veil of water to see death had been kind enough to send her an angel who looked, sounded, and, oh my, felt just like her Eddie.“Bryony, I will never leave you again, I swear it. Never, never,” he said, and buried his face into her wet hair, and kissed her cold face and lips and cheeks and fingers. He gently caressed her burst stitches and tried not to cry.A man walked up from behind him and held out a blanket. Eddie helped Bryony to her feet and she was soon
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Sixty
CHAPTER SIXTYThe EndOh, what a terrible story!How could it be that we followed Bryony’s journey from the time she was a little girl, ignorant of all that would befall her, through her first kiss and college and meeting friends and Eddie and her tormented killer and her fight to the death, and then she dies in the end?She dies. Bryony falls to the ground like a flower, and we are left to mourn her. More than that, we feel betrayed. We invested time and interest. We cheered her on and we shouted: “No, don’t let that man in your home!” and “Eddie, what are you doing, you must go with Bryony!” and “Hooray, Teddy Baker, you had decency inside of you all along, and we are so very proud of you for your choices!” Perhaps there were even a few thoughts of, “I wonder what a jonquil looks like. I shall certainly run to look one up and educate myself so I may better relate to the tale of Bryony and her Eddie.”Perhaps you are angry, dear reader. Perhaps you hoped better for our girl, beca
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Nine
CHAPTER FIFTY NINEBlood and Wind and RainThere comes a time in everyone’s life when a decision must be made.There are always decisions being made, every second of every day, and sometimes that decision is simply not to decide. However, it needs be said that one day every living thing on this earth will make The Utmost Decision, the decision that will change the rest of their existence one way or the other. What is this decision, you ask? It is different for everybody, and you will not know what yours will be until the time comes, and perhaps even then you will not realize the importance of your choice.But as for our dear Bryony, when the time came and she was faced with her Utmost Decision, she realized the ramification of that instant with serene clarity. In fact, as she stood there in the blood and wind and rain with a killer and his brightly shining knife, the terror subsided for a perfect moment and she had amazing presence of mind.She thought, “He has found me, and I am
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Eight
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHTFight“Bryony,” Peter huffed. “I wish you were feeling better, that you were whole. You have no idea how much I wish this for you. Alas, it is not meant to be, because it is time. You and I have a dance to finish, don’t we?”The wind picked up, blowing the storm their way, blowing Bryony’s hair around her white face like a flag signaling for help. But no help was to be had, and she was stuck fast while Peter pressed behind her, his hand fisted in her hair.Bryony’s head was pulled sharply back, and the wind caressed her vulnerable throat in a way that unnerved her.She tried to keep her voice calm when she said: “I wish that you wouldn’t kill me, Peter. It would disappoint Eddie. It would disappoint my father.”Peter shrugged. “We can’t change who we are, can we? No, we cannot. I was born to live and you were born to die, my beautiful Bryony.” He coughed. “This wind, it’s blowing sand in my face. However do you get used to it? I can’t breathe.”“Just give you
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Seven
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVENThe ChaseThe first drop of rain hit Bryony beside her eye, and ran down her face like tears.No, she thought. No!She knew Peter was behind her, and her mind went cottony with despair and panic. More time! She needed more time.Bryony picked up her pace. It would deplete her energy faster, but if she didn’t outrun him, her reserve of energy certainly wouldn’t do her any good.She scrapped her earlier plan of hiding in the library and phoning for help. Plan B consisted of running to the closest house and screaming hysterically for help. Unfortunately for her, that was still a good four miles. Loneliness consumed her, biting at her cheeks like the stormy air. It was all catching up with her. It was catching up.It was catching up. Already Peter could see her pale hair gathering and reflecting the weak light that somehow managed to filter through the harsh clouds. She was glowing, an ethereal will-o-wisp, and thoughts of the old tales flitted through his mind.
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Six
CHAPTER FIFTY SIXThe KnifeThe thing that must be remembered about Peter is that he, too, is a runner. Whereas Bryony planned to keep a little extra energy in her tank so as to make it the entire five miles, Peter had no such plans. He was sprinting, because he did not need to make it to the edge of town: he only needed to make it to the girl.His feet hit the ground like pistons, cold and mechanical, and he held the knife tightly in his grip, blade down.Oh, oh, how tragically this shall unfold.
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Five
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVECloudsThe car wouldn’t start, and Bryony knew this was unusual. Didn’t it start perfectly only today? Hadn’t it been a good and serviceable vehicle? Now, suddenly when she needed it most, it chose to let its internal parts rust and die and spew fluid hither and yon?She didn’t think so.Bryony peeked up and saw a man in the window of her father’s room. At first her heart skidded to a stop—Daddy!—but then she remembered her father was dead, and the man silhouetted there was Peter, and she had been warned against him within the last few hours by two people who cared for her.And she was a kind girl, a tender girl, but she was also a smart girl when her eyes were opened, and her father and Teddy succeeded in opening her eyes. Peter didn’t move from the window, and his body language told Bryony he was most likely off in a world of his own, so she used this to her advantage. She opened the car door as quietly as she could, slid out, and hit the ground doing what she
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Four
CHAPTER FIFTY FOURIdeallyPeter woke up with a start. Something was wrong. What was it? What was it?He was somewhere unfamiliar, and this realization had him on his feet beside the bed in no time. Had he been caught? Had he been taken? He would rather die before being taken, and he didn’t remember a struggle of any sort whatsoever.A quick scan of the room jogged his memory. Ah, yes. This was Stop’s house, the home where Bryony grew up, and he was sleeping in the bed of a dead man, but being who he was meant this didn’t bother him any. Stop had seemed like a good and decent man, and heaven knows his daughter adored him, and the fact that he had disliked Peter on sight, well, it only said good things about him, too.Downstairs Bryony would be sleeping, curled up on her side with, he imagined, her fingers close to her mouth like a child. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, but if she had the time to choose whatever she wanted to wear, would she be wearing a white nightgown to co
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Fifty Three
CHAPTER FIFTY THREEPlease LiveBryony nodded, and clutched the shoes to her chest like a talisman.“Thank you so much, Teddy. It can’t be easy to come here and say this to me. In my heart I think I always knew Peter was what you say, but I don’t want to believe that, you see. It means I have been foolish, which I have, and that Eddie has been blind, which he has. It means I should have run a long time ago, and I didn’t, and now I am sorry. It means when he saved me, he didn’t do it because he’s a good person, and I so dearly want him to be a good person. Please thank your wife for me, and kiss your beautiful girl, and take care of my father for me. Place him in the desert, and let him tamp it down and hold it back. I fear I shall never return here. Never again. I have nothing to come back for.”Teddy leaned through the window, kissed Bryony on her cheek and ran his hand over the stitches on her face.“I wish I could help more than this, but I can’t. Please live, sweet girl. You g
