The front door slammed and Dad said, “Aurora, sure you aren’t expecting a package?”I leaned back to find him army-crawling under the window in the living room. Like all dads do. “Already told you no, Rambo.”“The new mailman is back.” Dad reached up and pulled the curtains closed before standing up and peeking out. “Won’t come to the door.”“M shot a tranquillizer dart at the last guy.” Mom gave a tired look at M who shrugged unapologetically. “The fact that there’s a new one willing to be on our sidewalk is a miracle. Don’t scare him off, Clyde.”Dad tried to block me when I went for the curtains. “He won’t let me sign for your package. Demanded you come out in person.”“I’ll get my tranq gun!” M made for her room.“Don’t you dare!” Mom chased her.I swished back the curtains to get a look at the petrifying postman. “I find his interest in my teenage daughter creepy,” Dad grumbled.Oh, he had no idea.

And then, on the final day, it was time for the faux Underground Railroad. This is the part that no one believes. "No adult would ever do that," they say. "You can't be remembering that right." I am, in fact, remembering it perfectly. The counselors "shackled" us together with jump ropes so we were "like slave families" and then released us into the woods. We were given a map with a route to "freedom" in "the North", which must have been only three or four hundred feet but felt like much more. Then a counselor on horseback followed ten minutes later, acting as a bounty hunter. Hearing hooves, I crouched being a rock with Jason Baujelais and Sari Brooker, begging them to be quiet so we weren't caught and "whipped." I was too young, self-involved, and dissociated to wonder what kind of impact this had on my black classmates. All I knew was that I was miserable. We heard the sound of hooves growing closer and Max Kitnick's light asthma wheezes from beind an oak tree. "Shut up," Jason hissed, and I knew we were cooked. When the counselor appeared, Sari started to cry.

Things that remind me of our parents," Poppy said absently, "and that lovely cottage in Primrose Place… they always make me feel better. Like eating these tarts. And flower-print curtains. And reading Aesop's fables." "The smell of Apothecary's Roses," Amelia reminisced. "Watching the rain fall from the thatched eaves. And remember when Leo caught fireflies in jars, and we tried to use them as candlelight for supper?" Poppy smiled. "I remember never being able to find the cake pan, because Beatrix was forever making it into a bed for her pets." Amelia gave an unladylike snort of laughter. "What about the time one of the chickens was so frightened by the neighbors dog, it lost all its feathers? And Bea got Mother to knit a little sweater for it." Poppy spluttered in her tea. "I was mortified. Everyone in the village came to see our bald chicken strutting around in a sweater." "As far as I know." Amelia said with a grin. "Leo's never eaten poultry since. He says he can't have something for dinner if there's a chance it once wore clothes."- Poppy & Amelia

Ah, mistress, you’re an angel. Sure there’s not a drop left? I might have remembered one more person….”“Up yours,” I said rudely with another belch. “It’s empty. You should tell me the name anyway, after making me drink all that sewage.”Winston gave me a devious smile. “Come back with a full bottle and I will.”“Selfish spook,” I mumbled, and staggered away.I’d made it a few feet when I felt that distinct pins-and-needles sensation again, only this time it wasn’t in my throat.“Hey!”I looked down in time to see Winston’s grinning, transparent form fly out of my pants. He was chuckling even as I smacked at myself and hopped up and down furiously.“Drunken filthy pig!” I spat. “Bastard!”“And a good eve’in’ to you, too, mistress!” he called out, his edges starting to blur and fade. “Come back soon!”“I hope worms shit on your corpse!” was my reply. A ghost had just gotten to third base with me. Could I sink any lower?

Her next words took me by surprise. I lay as still as I could, barely breathing, afraid that if I moved she would stop speaking her heart.“My mom wanted six children. She only got me, and that sucks for her because I was a total weirdo.”“You were not,” I said.She twisted her head up to look at me.“I used to line my lips in black eyeliner and sit cross-legged on the kitchen table … meditating.”“Not that bad,” I said. “Crying out for attention.”“Okay, when I was twelve I started writing letters to my birth mother because I wanted to be adopted.”I shook my head. “Your childhood sucked, you wanted a new reality.”She snorted air through her nose. “I thought a mermaid lived in my shower drain, and I used to call her Sarah and talk to her.”“Active imagination,” I countered. She was becoming more insistent, her little body wriggling in my grip.“I used to make paper out of dryer lint.”“Nerdy.”“I wanted to be one with nature, so I started boiling grass and drinking it with a little bit of dirt for sugar.”I paused. “Okay, that’s weird.”“Thank you!” she said. Then, she got serious again. “My mom just loved me through all of it.

How could I not fall in love with him," she asked. And on the tail end of her words, her bedroom door flew open and closed just as fast.Jen bent over, panting heavily as she looked up at Sally."Hey Sally girl. Who we falling in love with?" Jen asked breathlessly."Jen, what's wrong?" Sally paused and then decided on a better question. "What have you done now?"Jen stood up and took two deep breaths. Seeming to have regained her wind, she spoke quickly."First off, I've changed my mind. I don't want you to name your first born after me."Sally interrupted. "Thank goodness for that," she muttered."I want you to name your entire freaking litter after me," Jen growled. "Do you know what I've been through?" Jen's arms were flinging around as she glared at Sally. "I did that little strip tease to try and keep things from escalating with the rest of the pack and Decebel was beyond pissed. I had to sneak out of the gathering room and make a run for it. I've been running through the freaking forest trying to throw him off by changing back and forth so that I could place my clothes that I carried in my freaking muzzle. CARRIED IN MY MUZZLE SALLY! I put them in different places to throw off him off my scent." Jen went over to Sally's window and was trying to judge the danger of using it as an exit.

The Copyright page for Dirty Little FreaksCopyright © 2014 by Jaden Wilkes. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.Basically, don’t be a dick. I work hard as an independent writer, and it sucks every time I come across some douchey pirate site with my books on it. If you seriously can’t afford the very low price to buy my book, then email me and we’ll talk about it. Most likely I’ll send you a copy if it means you aren’t downloading it for free online somewhere.And if you do download this for free from some rip off site, just remember, karma is like 69, you get what you give. It’s coming for you, asshole. Enjoy your shitty luck.****WARNING****Please understand that this book is full of swearing and sex and drugs. I don’t control what my characters do or think, so don’t shoot me off a bunch of angry emails because you got fired for reading it at work, or God is going to smite you for laughing, or you caught your husband jerking it to the sex scenes.This is also a work of fiction. Seriously. dude. If you feel compelled to have casual, unprotected sex or shove coke up your ass because you read about it somewhere, frealz, you need help. Unprotected sex often leads to gross diseases and even worse, babies. And yeah...drugs are bad…mmkay? So, that about covers it.If you got this far, enjoy!

Where's your car? Miles asks, glancing at him as he slams his door shut and slings his backpack over his shoulder. "And whats up with your hand?""I got rid of it," Damen says, gaze fixed on mine. Then glancing at Miles and seeing his expression he adds, "The car, not the hand.""Did you trade it in?" I ask, but only because Miles is listening. [...]He shakes his head and walks me to the gate, smiling as he says, "No, I just dropped off on the side of the road, key in the ignition, engine running.""Excuse me?!" Miles yelps. "You mean to tell me that you left your shiny, black, BMW M6 Coupe—by the side of the road?"Damen nods.But thats a hundred-thousand-dollar car!" Miles gasps as his face turns bright red."A hundreds and ten." Damen laughs. "Don't forget, it was fully customized and loaded with options."Miles stares at him, eyes practically bugging out of his head, unable to comprehend how anyone could do such a thing—why anyone would do such a thing. "Um, okay, so let me get this straight—you just woke up and decided—Hey, what the hell? I think I'll just dump my ridiculously expensive luxury car by the side of the road—WHERE JUST ANYONE CAN TAKE IT?"Damen shrugs. "Pretty much.""Because in case you haven't noticed," Miles says, practically hyperventilating now. "Some of us are a little car deprived. Some of us were born with parents so cruel and unusual they're forced to rely on the kindness of friends for the rest of their lives!""Sorry." Damen shrugs. "Guess I hadn't thought about that. Though if it makes you feel any better, it was all for a very good cause.

Ah, Robert?”“Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance.“You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up.“I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Thank you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.”“Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?”“When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her. “How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about.“Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip.“A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!