LIARHOLIC by Kingsley Ash Copyright LIARHOLIC Copyright © 2020 Kingsley Ash All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. Author Note This love story is not all pretty stardust, sunshine and unicorns. It’ll bite your heart out, chew it for a bit, and then spit it out. Only, there is a rainbow at the end. It just takes the road to Hell and two twisted souls to reach it. ~ Kingsley Ash Contents Title Page Copyright Author Note Dedication Prologue I Prologue II Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Epilogue I Epilogue II Epilogue III About the Author Acknowledgements Dedication To my baby girl. You are not gone, you just moved on ahead of me. You’ll forever live in my heart. Prologue I YOU Nine years old . . . I got this idea for an invention because he sometimes gets very sad. And I wanted to invent something to make him more happy. I’m always happy so I created the happiness machine to take away some of the happiness in my head and put it into his. Prologue II ME Fourteen years old . . . THE NIGHT THE SNOW FELL LOOKING AT YOU HURTS. It always hurts. Sunshine hair. Emerald eyes. ‘You still afraid of the dark, Shepherd?’ you whisper. We always whisper when we hide in the broom cupboard, under the staircase of the children’s home. They don’t like seeing you with me. Not the bad boy, Amy. Stay far away from the Lawson kid. He’s bad news. The cursed boy. I am nothing. Dust and nothing. Except, you never look at me like that. You never see me as the total screw up that I am. That’s why it always hurts to look at you. ‘It’s okay if you are afraid, because I’ve made you something,’ you say. ‘When I was seven, I was afraid of the dark. I couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep. So my sister told me at night when it gets dark, if she’s not there to hold my hand, it’s because she’s up there in the sky, shining bright as a star, to fight off any monsters in my cupboard or under my bed.’ You reach into your bright yellow bag that’s dotted in white seahorses, the one you take everywhere with you. You pull out something, and whatever it is, it must be small as your hand dwarfs it. ‘Open up your hand,’ you whisper to me. I hesitate. ‘Come on, Shepherd. Don’t you trust me?’ ‘Yeah, I trust you. Just, I don’t like surprises, is all.’ It’s me who can’t be trusted, Amy. ‘Law, please,’ you beg, and fuck if I can’t obey when you melt that begging voice into my nickname. I extend my hand out, palm facing upwards. ‘Close your eyes and open them when I tell you to,’ you say, and I can hear the excitement in your voice. I shut my eyes and feel something cool and light drop into my hand. ‘You can open your eyes, now.’ I look down at my hand, and at first, I’m not sure what it is. It's oval shaped like your emerald eyes. A keyring, I think. It looks like a dreamcatcher, but you’ve replaced feathers for plastic stars. ‘What is it?’ I ask you. ‘It’s a Monster Catcher.’ I don’t say anything. I don’t even blink as I just keep staring at it, crushed into silence. I turn my hand over and let it dangle from my fingertips. I’m scared I’ll break it, Amylocks. Break you. ‘It’s like a dreamcatcher, except the stars capture monsters. It will protect you, Shepherd. It will protect you from all your monsters.’ You start humming that lullaby. The one you sing whenever you put a plaster on my cuts and scrapes. It echoes off the darkest corners of the tight space we’re crammed inside, like it’s warding off the monsters, already. The voice of an angel, your voice could stop wars. There are hidden things, things within the chaos. And Amy, I can’t let this go on. Us. There can never be US. It ends now. ‘Listen, Amy, meet me in the woods later. In the abandoned church, okay?’ You twirl the gold seahorse pendant around your neck, the gift I got you for your fourteenth birthday. ‘Is it safe?’ you say. ‘You can trust me.’ It’s not my first lie.
