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But she hid everything so well. When she turned towards me, flashing me a singularly beautiful smile, I didn’t detect anything besides the normal annoyance one would feel towards her parents.

“Are any parents not tough?”

I chuckled.

“Wouldn’t know. I never had parents.”

I had a deadbeat dad in between stints of foster parents. Never someone to kiss my knees when I fell or hold my hand or tell me that monsters didn’t hide in the dark.

No, they just proved to me that monsters lurk in the fucking daylight.

“Lucky bastard,” she responded, and I thought that she was being a tad bit dramatic. She had a life that others would kill for. Beauty queen. Rich. Parents. What more could she want?

But there was something familiar in her eyes, something that called to me in a way no other girl ever had before. I would almost call it haunting, as if she had seen too much for her young age. Those were eyes that held thousands of secrets.

And I stupidly wanted to learn each one.

“Well, do you need any help planting your dumbass garden?” I asked, smirking when she glared at me.

Yes, I was an asshole, but so was she.

“It’s a smartass garden, by the way, and no. I don’t want your pity help.”

“Pity help?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

She groaned, putting her head into her handsin a movement that indicated her exasperation. That led to more dirt being smeared across her face. Somehow, that only heightened her ethereal beauty.

“I’m good at reading people,” she said at last, voice muffled from her hands. “You think I’m a nutcase.”

Kind of.

“What else can you tell about me?” I asked, genuinelycurious. For some undefinable reason, her answer mattered to me. I wanted her to like me.

Hell if I knew why I wanted to make a good impression on this crazy girl.

“Well,” she began, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully. “You were planning on fucking that girl.” She nodded her head towards where Diamond - Ember? - was arguing on the phone. No doubt Ronan had refused to pick her up. He never liked being with the same girl twice in the same week.

He was a bastard like that.

My mind was fixated on her use of the word “fucking.” I’d be lying if I said it didn’t do something funny to me.

“Well, that’s enough gardening for today,” she said, standing up and wiping her hands against her jeans. “I need to start heading home before it gets dark.”

“Wait? Did you walk here?”

I didn’t know where she lived, but I knew this apartment complex was in the middle of fucking nowhere.

She shrugged nonchalantly.

“No biggie. I needed the exercise.”

At that, I raised both my eyebrows. With some girls, I could tell they were putting themselves down in order to get attention and compliments, but I only heard sincerity in Addie’s voice. That struck me as...wrong.

She was as thin as a twig, almost unhealthily so.

“What’s your name, doll?” I asked, realizing that I hadn’t asked her. Damn. I really was a bastard.

Instead of answering, she smiled. The smile was both sultry and devious, as if she had perfected wicked seduction in the mirror.