Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Get to the door.
Get outside.
That was the plan.
So I took my time getting to my feet, making sure I sucked in a few deep breaths, then charging out.
“Hey!” one of them yelled as the sound of glass smashing on the ground filled the space. Not that I was hearing much past the thumping of my pulse in my ears.
“Fucking get her,” the other yelled as I heard footsteps rushing forward.
They came from both sides.
They were going to cut me off before I had a chance to get to the door.
Without another option, I rushed back down the aisle between pool tables, making them backtrack as I put a table between us.
“You’re just gonna make me punish you even harder,” the tattoo one said, shooting an evil smile at me.
I never wanted anything more than to wipe that smile off of his face.
Before I was even aware of what I was doing, I reached up with my bum arm, grabbing a pool ball and just… hauling that thing at him.
I inherited a lot from my mom. My hair, eyes, face, frame, stubbornness, love of all things junk food, and cheesy movies.
One thing I must have gotten from my deadbeat dad, though, was my aim.
My mom couldn’t hit a target from a foot away.
Me? I’d always been able to throw trash in a can from halfway across the room, sink baskets at gym, throw a ball right at the umpire. I was good enough that my gym teachers always asked me to join a sports team.
So I wasn’t exactly surprised when the ball made a sickly satisfying thwack as it smacked right into the mouth of the tattoo guy.
That smile fell real quick.
But the rage in his eyes had a shiver moving up my spine as I grabbed another ball as I moved around the table.
I tossed it, but he was now a seething, moving target, and I’d only managed to graze his shoulder.
“You’re gonna pay for that, little bitch,” he snarled, blood spitting into the air as he did so.
He lunged across the table, making me shoot backward.
Right into the other guy.
His hands grabbed me as I remembered the knife.
I didn’t hesitate.
I held onto that thing like the lifeline it was and just… stabbed backward.
Once. Twice. Three times.
His howls filled the space as he released me and I ran again, the other guy rushing after me.
It was then I heard it.
The rumble of motorcycles.
A lot of them.
Coming closer.
I didn’t have a reason to hope it was the bikers coming to save me, since I doubted my mom even knew I was missing yet. She never got up this early on a weekend. But it would be people I could run to for help. Right?
“Help me get her,” tattoo guy snarled at his buddy.
“She stabbed me!”
“Yeah, so get her so we can make her pay for it.”
A hand reached for me and I struck out with the knife.
But he was anticipating that, slamming his fist down on my hand, knocking the knife from my grip.
I ran again, but reached toward the wall, yanking down a pool cue.
Those bikes sounded like they were right outside.
I drew in a breath to scream just as the tattoo guy lunged at me again.
I was swinging out when the door to the building flew open.
I don’t know if that distracted the tattoo guy or what, but my pool cue landed a loud smack to his face, sending him back a foot as I saw the best thing I think I’d ever seen.
Callow rushing in, gun drawn, to save me.
“Daph, run,” he yelled to me as he turned to take aim at the guy I’d stabbed.
I was running away, so I didn’t see it, but I heard the gunshots, the cries of pain, then nothing as, I imagined, Callow killed that guy.
“Get behind the counter,” Callow called to me, his voice fierce.
I caught a quick look at him as I went behind the counter like he’d demanded.
He was tucking his gun away as he grabbed tattoo guy by the throat.
There was a dark, chilling look in Callow’s eyes then that had a shiver moving down my spine even as I dropped down to my knees behind the counter.
With the threats more or less neutralized, the adrenaline had no outlet, making me start to shake uncontrollably as the sounds of fists hitting flesh filled the room.
There were other voices in the space then, but I was feeling oddly numb and detached as I sat there, rocking back and forth, trying to think past my racing heart, the tight feeling around my throat.
I don’t know how long I sat there like that.
But it was Callow’s voice that seemed to penetrate through the fog I found myself trapped in.
“Daph, come on,” he said, making me look up to see him standing there, his hands bloody, his knuckles broken open. “We have to get out of here, kid,” he said, voice coaxing. “Your mom is worried about you,” he added.