Kiss the Stars (Devon Slaughter Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

of Blues. They were the
last thing she had given me. It soothed me to rub the cubes together so they
made a soft clicking noise.
    I rolled an
eight. Not as good as a seven or a nine but better than a six. No matter the
number, even snake-eyes; you couldn’t roll again for a better number. There had
to be rules. Otherwise, I could spend the rest of my life rolling dice. And I
loved rules. As long as I was the one who made them.
    Before leaving
the house, I teased and ratted up my hair, so it was big and high, securing it
with Aqua Net. I found a black dress with a tight lace bodice. I put on black
nail polish over the sparkly blue that had begun to chip.
    Outside, the air
was fresh from the rain. Clouds drifted past the rising moon.
    I always went to
the same bar down by the river. It was dark and grungy and the bands that
played there were dark and grungy too. It was the only way I could get through
the long nights.

3. Devon
    THE TUNNELS
beneath the city had been closed for half a century. Public safety, they said,
but I was hardly part of the public. When I discovered the passage beneath my
building, I gave the steel door a few good kicks and I was in.
    The tunnel went
from China Town to the boardwalk. Tonight when I came out the air was balmy. On
the beach two girls juggled fire. Flames shimmered on the water behind them.
    Music clanged
through an open door. “I.D.,” the bouncer crossed his arms to make his muscles
bulge. I slipped past him when he blinked.
    I felt her
presence, before I saw her. Ruby . I’d swiped a book of matches from her
coffee table, last night. The name of the bar was printed on the cover.
    She sat alone.
Her hair was teased up like a red cloud. Her neck was long and breakable.
    She gasped when
I suddenly appeared beside her. “Hey,” I said. “Remember me?” Again, I was
struck by how pretty she was, even dressed in black and looking very Goth.
    “ Oh ,
hi-i-i,” she breathed, something people did in books I hadn’t realized was
possible.
    A guitar
shrieked as it was unplugged. When a bleached blonde in tight jeans brushed
against me, I gave her the eye. She eyed me back. There was plenty of time for
that later. I turned back to Ruby.
    “I’ve never seen
you here before,” she said. Normally, it would be a line, but she sounded truly
surprised.
    “I don’t come
here,” I shrugged. “Why? Is it your favorite haunt?” She did kind of haunt a
place.
    “I come here
every night,” she said.
    “Every single
night?”
    She lowered her
gaze.
    I wondered if
guys hit on her or if she was too weird. “You must have heard some good lines,”
I said.
    “No…” she
stirred her drink and gave me a shy glance. “If I was going to use a line, I
would quote from a great book. And if they didn’t get it…well, then at least I
would know. And I wouldn’t have to go to all the trouble.”
    “What trouble?”
    “You know. Of talking .”
    I never had to
talk to anyone. “Okay, let’s hear it,” I said. “Give me a line.”
    She flushed. Her
lips moved ever so slightly. I swear she was counting under her breath. She
stopped at eight. Something wrong hovered in the air. And then she went into
character, putting her hand to her breast, imploring me with her incredible
black ringed eyes. “Kiss me. But don’t look at me. I don’t want to see
your lying face,” her lips quirked. “You miserable conniving bitch, Catherine ,”
she broke into giggles.
    I sidled closer.
“I don’t remember Heathcliff calling Catherine a bitch,” I wanted to put my
hand on the back of her neck.
    Her eyelashes
fluttered. “Your turn,” she said.
    What came to me
was the opening of Tristessa , which I had committed to memory last night
in her living room. I quoted word for word. The rest of the world fell away. It
was just the two of us, until I came to the end of the longest run-on sentence
known to man.
    “I love that
book,” she said. Her eyes were so huge and gorgeous and desperate, I thought
they