The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [96]
Jessica stood over him, motionless. Ralston was clearly trembling, his hands fidgety as he did not know what to do with them. “What happened?” she asked before she could take the option of not speaking at all.
“I should’ve gone through the book, I should’ve gone through the goddamn book before I delivered it!” Ralston spoke in muffled whispers.
“I thought you had Andrew go through it for you,” Jess said. “Did he slip his own stuff into the manuscript again without your knowledge? You told me he does that....”
Ralston couldn’t look at her. He was upset and vulnerable to his own betraying mouth and prey to the drugs that besieged his system. “Bill said some freaky shit and it didn’t make any sense. You know what? If Andrew rewrote the storyline and wants to take credit for book, I’ll stretch out his scrotum for my living room drapery and use his balls for drawstring ends.”
Andrew rewrote the storyline and wants to take credit for the book. Brilliant top-of-the-head banter, though it made no sense as the actual truth. Andrew’s proven insistence on anonymity had always been Ralston’s guarantee that a potentially disastrous success secret would be taken to their graves. That, and a few deep dark secrets that Ralston kept even from himself, regarding memories of nightmare from more than a decade past. Even the people closest to the both of them had no idea that Ralston never wrote shit.
Andrew was up to something, being that it was his novel after all, and whatever he’d written in it had to be responsible for William’s panic attack.
Ralston rose from the bench and marched past Jess.
“What are you doing?” Jessica said.
“Stay put. It’s time I pay little Andy—man a cameo appearance to his rat hole dive. I’ll whip his ass to settle this, for goddamn sure. If there’s still a problem by the time I’m through with him, it’ll only be in where to hide the body before sunrise.”
26.
An Odd Distortion for Bari
I know who you are....
Much to Bari's knowledge, Melony did know who Andrew was. At least, to an impressive degree she did. Why, she was Maxwell Polito’s wife, for one thing, among many other things, which apparently displeased her lately. Bari had given careful attention to all that was said over Andrew’s Chinese feast, and there grew the increasing danger that Andrew was going to up and confirm just about every little morsel of information that Melony had on him.
Max Polito had always been to Bari a source of amusement and a nuisance and it would be unlikely for her to admit to Andrew that she admired Max’s perseverance. But she always steered Andrew clear of him, whenever she sensed that Max was on the heels of all those strange occurrences involving Andrew and Ralston in the past. Max was aware of way too much information lately more than ever, and had himself witnessed many things incredible to human eyes, but hadn’t collected even one shred of substantial proof to open the eyes of the world he was so passionate to convince.
There were many just like him, and they all fell short of convincing the masses due to their inabilities to produce anything concrete. And they all had to deal with it, too.
Bari knew that Max anticipated the day when his message in a bottle would fall from the sky and into his lap, just so he could uncork it and exploit the whole damn thing.
This was a big no-no in Bari’s book. She and her kind could not tolerate such exposure to a natural, physical, mortal Earth; human society was simply not yet ready for such a worldwide network premiere from beyond. Though it was well on its way to getting there.
Bari wasn’t going to be the one to allow that to happen.
Whatever Mr. Loose-lipped, Bleeding-heart Andrew felt he had to spill his guts over to Melony, it wasn’t going to be the truth.
There wasn’t time for the truth. Not yet, of course, for the truth never fails to be revealed in time. Neither Bari nor even the Sacred Ones who started this whole Everborn-among-mankind thing at