Read Hemlock Grove for Free Online Page B

lying whore mouth,” he said.
    “I … was waiting for the right moment,” she said.
    He drank, and pulled suddenly onto the shoulder and stopped the car. Route 443 was a road with many dips and blind curves with regular accidents for that reason.
    “Roman, start the car,” said Letha.
    He sat with his hands on the wheel, unmoving.
    “Maybe I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be a drama queen,” she said.
    “Is it Tyler?” he said.
    Tyler was a boy Letha had dated briefly in the spring, an utter drip Roman held in just about the regard of a wet towel left on the bed. But now Roman sat looking ahead and in the center of his mind’s eye he saw the other boy while off on the edges there was a dark flickering like a pair of taloned shadow hands slowly wrapping around his face.
    “It wasn’t Tyler,” she said. “Now please start the car and stop being a drama queen.”
    Tyler left his mind but those dark fingertips continued to dance, to taunt, to close.
    “Who,” he said.
    “I don’t want to talk about it unless you start the car.”
    He rolled down the window and took the keys from the ignition and dropped them onto the ground outside.
    “Who,” he said.
    “See? I knew you were going to make a federal case over it.”
    “Who,” he said.
    She folded her arms. “Well, you sound like the world’s dumbest owl,” she said.
    He shut his eyes, wanting the shadows to go away, but they didn’t care whether or not his eyes were closed. He opened his eyes and took one hand off the wheel and pressed the horn so it made one long blare.
    “Who,” he said.
    “Stop it, Roman.”
    “Who,” he said.
    “Stop it, Roman.”
    He centered his vision on his hand on the horn, only distantly hearing it. This is really here, he reminded himself, growing less convinced.
    “Stop it, Roman!”
    The finger began to lace and he grew less convinced.
    Afraid, she tore his hand from the wheel and clasped it hard between her own.
    “It was an angel,” she said.
    The shadow evanesced from his mind’s eye and he grew aware of a pressure, the pressure of her hands on his. Really here.
    “It was a what,” he said.
    “It was an angel,” she said.
    He was quiet.
    “Literally?” he said.
    “It was an angel,” she said.
    He was quiet.
    “Tell me about it,” he said.
    “How would you talk about dancing to a person without legs?” she said.
    “I have legs that won’t quit,” said Roman. But as someone who was by nature a taker he knew when he had taken exactly as much as he was going to get. Though it had never before been so much more and so much less than what he wanted.
    He opened the car door and leaned out and picked up his keys. He took a long drink from the flask and turned the ignition and pulled back onto the road.
    “Told your folks?” he said.
    “They’re … adjusting,” she said.
    Roman raised his eyebrows. Imagine that.
    “Mom is coming around to where she can even admit it. Dad … Dad wants me to have an abortion.”
    “Holy cow,” said Roman.
    “He thinks it’s all in my head.”
    Roman offered no opinion.
    “But I’m having this baby.” Stated with a calm, nonpartisan, and immovable authority. “Deal with it,” she said.
    “I didn’t say anything,” he said.
    “Deal with it,” she said.
    Roman rounded a curve carefully, his drunk driving always much more conscientious when Letha was in the car. Neither spoke for a while as he dealt with it.
    She let him. She had not enjoyed hiding this from everyone she loved. Liar! In fact possession of a miracle all to herself had filled her with a private thrill no less than a pack rat who had stumbled across a lost temple of fascinating refuse—it was hers, all hers! But now the time had come to share it; it was no longer hers alone. Annoyingly.
    Roman did not reopen the subject, but he did pick up his iPod and put their song on the sound system. Their song was a British pop-rock ballad about a rich girl who sexually slums it with