Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror, #1)

by Karina Halle

Ada was always a degree or two away from full-on teenage angst.

She peered at me closer, inspecting my face for signs of mental illness. She did that often.

I know I’m only twenty-two, but I totally thought I would have it made by this age. That’s highly ambitious, but I can’t help it. I’ve always grown up feeling like I was special, like I was meant to do something really amazing with my life and make an impact on people.

It was ten a.m. on Saturday, and I was too tired to handle anything coming out of my mother’s mouth.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just a giant orb of vibrations and feelings that knocks everyone flat on their back, whereas my dad just puts it somewhere else (fuel for a later explosion).

I was fat (or at least too overweight for high school normalcy).

I was fucked and I knew it. I had stupidly wandered into some epic rape palace run by meth-addicted hobos and bald men with beards who recently escaped nearby jails and had taken over this place for their torture sessions with hapless young women they found exploring the coast. Even worse, I was going to be the hapless woman who decided to infiltrate their headquarters.

He put his hand under my chin and tilted it up so that I was looking at him. It was OK. I liked looking at him.