Society Rules by Katherine Whitley Read Free Book Online

fright, but her words locked Indie into place and stopped her breathing. She stayed where she was, staring stupidly at the two of them.
    “I suppose it may be easier, coming from you,” sighed the young man in a resigned and weary voice, but it was achingly smooth and lulling. It had the disturbing effect of both putting Indie both at ease and on edge simultaneously.
    “She knows you . . . and loves you,” he added quietly.
    Wow. That was quite the intimate statement, uttered by a person upon whom she had never set eyes before. Indie fought a defiant urge to demand that he explain just how he could possibly know anything about whom or what she loved.
    Instead, she focused on the young man’s eyes, reading his unease and wariness . . . and some other unfathomable emotion in them that inexplicably made her heart ache.
    He needed comforting. She had no idea why she knew this, but the young man in front of her was on the edge of heartbreak and despair.
    The knowledge made Indie’s own heart shrivel with pain. His pain was hers also. The thought slid through her mind like strong hands through her hair, and made her unsteady on her feet once more. As she thought further about the statement that he had just made, suddenly, it wasn’t so hard to keep her mouth shut. She was becoming nervously intrigued.
    “Then we haven’t much time,” Miss Maggie croaked. “Sit down Indie, and I am going to tell you a story.” Indie snapped back to reality with a gasp.
    “I am on the clock,” she remembered, speaking in a small voice, “they will be looking for me, wondering where I am in just a few minutes. I’ll have to count first . . . get report . . . .” her voice trailed away.
    “No one is thinking about you right now, trust me,” Miss Maggie said airily, as she shifted uncomfortably in her bed. “Nor me either.”
    Indie silently tried to process this statement, and decided that even though it made no sense, she was just going to have to go with it. She knew Maggie was going to die very soon, and she was suddenly desperate to hear what she had to say.
    “I will warn you right now, Indie, my story goes back further than your mind can probably accept; your carefully cultivated normal mind. I’m talking about billions of years . . . one hundred and twenty, to be more precise.”
    Indie listened with outward calm, but was already wondering where Maggie could possibly be going with this introduction. And why was this strange and beautiful man at her side not shrinking away, or at the very least, looking appropriately mystified by these words?
    Indie shifted nervously, noticing at that same moment, that all of the unending sounds of the nursing home . . . call lights buzzing, aides talking, etcetera, had gone frighteningly silent.
    She dared not look into the hallway, for suddenly, she suffered a gut twisting terror that she would see everyone frozen in place, as if in an episode of the Twilight Zone, and she had no wish to begin screaming uncontrollably.
    “Pay attention Indie Allen!” barked Maggie, hoarsely, “Stand still and listen, because my time is unfortunately, quite limited now!”
    Indie gaped at her. She knew her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to fix it, for Maggie had called her by her maiden name. Indie knew without a doubt, that this name had never crossed her lips in this town . . . not in this state.
    She carefully pulled her mouth up to its correct position, and dropped her head, clinging to the wooden footboard of Maggie’s bed for dear life. She was so very grateful for its ability to hold her up, because as her eyes made contact once more with the one called Jackson, Indie felt the current snap through her again, and his intensity made her legs feel shifty.
    She steeled herself.
    “Ok, you know what? I . . . I am positive now that I absolutely need to hear this, and I’m . . .” she gulped down the slight feeling of nausea that was scratching at