Rich Kids Don't Die | Featured

Chapter Fifteen

She made an over exaggerated gagging action. "My gods. You are an absolutely horrible singer. I've already died, but I swear if you continue, you might just kill me again."

Asher rolled his eyes. "I am not. Say that one more time, and I'll end up killing you anyway. Also, I know I said I wasn't hitting on you-"

Maddie faced him with an icy, penetrating stare.

"-And I won't be - but I'd just like to subtly point out that it'd be better if we got to know each other. Right now, you should nod your head in agreement."

"Maybe. But, for future reference, Jack Frost, devilish charm will get you nowhere with me."

Another laugh poured from his lips, echoing in the forest as they continued their trudging through the dying, crinkled leaves. They walked alongside each other with loud laughs and murmurs until the sky had long fallen, draping over them, a velvety violet curtain bleeding with inky blue. Street lamps flickered on, the rushing of cars blurring into the sounds of the fallen night.

In the distance, Maddie could hear the shrieks of crows, the tweeting of birds, the pleading howl of a fox. But the one thing that replayed in her mind in the darkened forest, over and over, was the music of having made another friend.

It was the beginning. The blossoming of something new, almost revolutionary. And it was these words that clouded her wandering mind as she soon trailed back down the dim streets, with a ghost of a smile lingering on her flushed lips.

However, the lightheaded feeling of being afloat had suddenly diminished, blown away. It was almost as if the raging flurries of the cool wind had not just left her hair in disarray, but her thoughts too; the words Lucian Michaels and prison and false accusations all forming flickering balls of fire in her skull, flares of cackling worry creeping out.

This was what kept Maddie's mind occupied, as her feet padded against the cracked pavement. A still night, where only occasionally a car would whizz by, a flutter of the crisp breeze, a distant mumble somewhere in the neighborhood. Fragments of the past flickering in her head, of almost everything that had lead to that very moment.

Then, there was a blinding flash.

A series of shouts and hollers sounded at the gates, clinging to the shining metal along with the fingers coiled around each inky black bar. The incessant pestering outside of Maddie's house glittered with the gleam of cameras, the occasional spark of diamond light and a small yet irritating click.

She watched in horror behind her satin curtains, drawing a sharp breath and tugging them to a close as she heard her mother's pattering, daunting footsteps draw closer. Maddie's face had paled to such an extreme she seemed to emit a milky light.