Damaged: The Dillon Sisters, Layla Frost [the gingerbread man read aloud TXT] 📗

Table of Contents

Damaged

Copyright

From The Pervy Heart Of The Author

Dedication

Preface

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Connect with Layla Frost

Titles by Layla Frost

© 2021 Layla Frost

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Formatting by Christina Smith

From The Pervy Heart Of The Author

I’m gonna keep this short and sweet.

If you’re trusting me enough to take this ride with me…

Thank you.

Brynne Asher—

This was an absolutely wild experience that came together perfectly. Not only that, but it was also so easy. Thank you for rolling with my insane idea and for bringing the Dillon sisters to life with me. You are the adulty Aria to my winging-it Briar. The wine to my cupcake. The chips to my salsa.

I absolutely adore you and can’t wait to collab again…

To the illogically anxious. The depression nappers. The comfort bingers.

To the fucked up. The flawed. The quirky. The scarred.

To the damaged.

This one is for you.

The Dillon Sisters Duet is a collaboration between Layla Frost and Brynne Asher. It’s been a long time in the making. Deathly and Damaged can be read as standalones or in either order. When you read one, you’ll NEED the other in your life. These books go together like a finely-aged wine and a decadent cupcake.

Enjoy your time Aria and Briar. Because no one does drama like the Dillon sisters.

Prologue

Free

Briar

I WAS DYING.

Not metaphorically. Not exaggeratedly. Not dramatically, in my teenage angst of I-can’t-even.

But literally.

Again, not how I would literally die without chocolate. The real literal.

At sixteen years old, I was dying. Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.

A.L.L.

Or, as I called it, all the bullshit.

I could feel it happening. As if my cancer were walking from room to room within my body, flicking the OFF switches to power it down. But it was moving too slow. A meandering stroll, painfully poking and jabbing as it dragged its feet through me.

The absolute worst part—which was saying something because there were a lot of worst parts—was there was no escape from my cancer. I couldn’t zone out on YouTube or escape into a book. I didn’t have the blissful moments where it slipped my mind for the briefest second. Even in sleep, my pain seeped into my dreams, taking away any break I might’ve had.

It was worse in the hospital. I was surrounded by death and pain and sorrow. The sharp antibacterial smells. The nurses. The doctors. The tubes coming out of my body, leading to the annoying beeping machine next to my bed. The ever-present rumble of voices outside my door, and the frequent crying and screaming from the other patients or their loved ones. Even the lack of darkness.

I’d never appreciated total darkness until I was surrounded by the harsh glow of lights that never fucking turned off.

It was like a constant spotlight, shining on my disease. Stealing my peace. Robbing me of any comfort I might have found at the end of my short life.

Closing my eyes, I willed my body to just give up. If I had the energy, I would’ve dragged myself out of the room until I found something to end my pain.

People don’t understand the pain of cancer. Not really. Because cancer was scary and huge, that was what everyone focused on. They didn’t know it wasn’t just the horrendous disease itself. How each new symptom needed a new treatment which led to a new side effect that would need a new treatment. It was a never-ending cycle, and every part of it was awful. The treatment sucked. The side effects of the medication sucked. The wear on my already frayed mental health sucked.

The stuff that was supposed to help me ended up hurting me, and that fucking sucked.

Tears burned behind my closed lids. Not because of the pain or because I felt sorry for myself. They were rage tears directed at the universe and myself.

I should’ve killed myself when I had the chance. When I felt it getting worse. I shouldn’t have been such a coward and a failure. Now I’m stuck in this damn bed.

Powerless.

Useless.

Out of control.

Alone.

But I wasn’t alone. Beyond all the nurses, docs, techs, cleaners, and other pediatric patients, there was my constant companion.

Death.

I knew he wasn’t really there—I might’ve been crazy, but I wasn’t totally bananas. But sometimes in the middle of the night, in the light shining in from the hallway, I could see him. Lurking in the corner.

Haunting me.

Taunting me.

When I was first diagnosed, Death was an invisible specter I was running from. I hadn’t wanted to die. But after aging a hundred years in six months, I was ready for him. Racing toward him. I wanted him to take me and end the pain.

He never did.

I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, my eyes closed against the sunlight that streamed onto my face, gloating that it was free while I was trapped. When I eventually dozed off, my dreams were invaded by the sounds I heard outside my door and the pain I felt in my bones.

When someone touched my hand, hope flared in my chest before I was even awake. But when my eyes flew open, it wasn’t Death.

It was an angel with a backlit halo of dark hair.

“Aria?” I croaked, wondering