Life After Dark: Book Two of the Dark Series

Chapter 96

"It's time to ROCK in another morning! So, rise and shine, and get your butts in gear. Another day has dawned!"

Tommy reached over and lowered the volume of his alarm clock. He should have turned it off hours ago, he thought as he rose from his bed. It wasn't like he'd been asleep. Quite the contrary. He'd been awake most of the night.

Everything seemed to consume him at once and made sleep virtually impossible. He'd thought about his mother, and he wondered if she was happy. He didn't know for certain, and his ignorance bothered him. She wasn't the type of person to wear her emotions on her sleeve. Oh, he knew that she loved him. He could never doubt that. Her eyes shone with her love for him. If he doubted anything, her love for him would never to come into question. But still, he knew that he wasn't enough. His mother needed and deserved more than just him. Whether she would admit it or not—and he knew that she wouldn't—she needed and deserved a love of her own. But who, when and how? Those questions kept coming up repeatedly, and eventually, he gave up on the answers. He would find them later. He then moved on to the next question.

Lizabeth and Lucky? All was quiet when he came home last night, but he couldn't forget the look on her face as she sat in the backseat of Gina's Escort. Her usually animated brown eyes were dull with despair. He and Gina discussed her odd reaction to the video, and they wondered if Liz thought that the kiss more meant than just a moment in a scene. They both hoped she didn't think that. She had to realize that she didn't have to worry about Lucky's loyalty to her. She had it. He would never betray her, and especially not with Dawn.

And, speaking of Dawn, she and Nikolas had seemed just as distracted as Lucky and Liz. Were they experiencing problems, too, or...? Tommy shook his head as if to release himself from the questions in his mind. He loved his family and friends, but there were times when their behavior confused the hell out of him. He sometimes became irritated with them when he thought they were taking things for granted. Didn't they realize how fortunate they were to be free to love each other and be happy without fear of some maniacal force interfering with it? Well, if they didn't realize it, he certainly did. And he was determined to be as happy as humanly possible.

With that thought firmly in mind, he quickly finished putting on his sweats and running shoes. Simone had told him that she planned to sleep in that Sunday morning, so he quietly tiptoed past her door and out of the apartment. Normally, he would have run down the stairs to the ground, but considering his mother was upstairs asleep, he satisfied his need for rapid movement to a light jog and a child-like jump from the bottom step to the ground.

"Hey!" Lizzie smiled at her cousin as he looked at her in surprise.

"I didn't even see you!" he laughed. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I decided to take you up on your offer to run with you...if it still stands?" she asked.

"Of course! But you gotta stretch first. I'm not carrying you back if you cramp up," he warned her.

"I won't cramp up!" she told him, crossing her fingers behind her back. She hadn't done any type of exercise since she cut her P.E. class freshman year. She had been neglectful in taking care of her body and her mind. After her talk with her aunt, she decided that in order to get her life back on track and for it to resemble something she could understand, she would have to start taking of herself. Her entire being...from head to heart to toe.

"Ready?" Tommy asked after Lizabeth stopped imitating his stretching movements to stare at him.

"Sure!"

He raised an eyebrow in response to her sudden enthusiasm. She would conk out on him before they reached the end of the block. He shook his head and with a playful roll of his eyes he said, "Come on. Let's go."