Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“What about your head?”
“Woman, I would sacrifice you in a minute if it meant my survival. Don’t mistake this for anything other than me owing someone a favor and you being my only way out.”
“Out of what?”
He looked away. “Hell.”
“Hell was back there, in that room,” I croaked.
“Wrong.” His grip on my arm tightened as he looked down the hall again and pointed his gun in front of his chest. “It’s in here.”
What? I frowned as he started tugging me down the hall. Voices sounded, and he pushed me into the shadows.
One shot, two.
And he grabbed me again.
We raced down a circular iron staircase, our footsteps clanging with a hollow metallic sound. In all, about three minutes later, we left the main part of the building. I glanced up at a tall lighthouse standing in silhouette against a sliver of moon. He tugged my hand toward the top of a cliff, and sure enough, we were on a manmade island supporting a towering unlit lighthouse, surrounded by nothing but sinister-appearing, dark, choppy water.
“Get ready to jump.” He put one gun back into the holster strapped to his thigh and grabbed my hand, keeping his remaining gun in his right. “On the count of three—”
“Wait!” I jerked back. “I don’t know how to swim.”
He looked heavenward and muttered a series of curses. “You better learn in the next few seconds because I’m leaving with or without you.”
“My hero,” I deadpanned, surprised I was even speaking after all that shock or saying something that could set this guy off and force him to take me out, just like he apparently had the countless bodies I’d seen littered all the way down the dark hall.
He ignored me as gunshots rang out. “Now or never, jump straight down, and I’ll pull you up, panic, and I’ll shoot you, got it?”
I shivered in absolute terror.
How much more could my body take?
Or my nerves?
I squeezed my eyes shut. I was a warrior. This was my only chance. I could do this.
Fight. Pace’s final word to me before he died.
I would, I would fight.
“Got it,” I repeated in a hollow voice that nobody would ever possibly believe was trustworthy.
“Good girl.” He grabbed my hand. “One, two, three!” A gunshot rang out and met its mark directly into my left arm as we jumped, causing me to sag against him on the way down.
“Damn it!” he roared, shoving me away from him so hard I wondered if I was going to survive at all. Searing pain pulsed through my body as I barely missed a rock below and sank into the ice-cold water.
He had told me not to panic.
But panic took over.
I was shot.
Bleeding all over.
And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push through the water to get to the surface; it simply went right through my fingers like air. Cold waves dragged me closer to the rocks as I fought to get to the top.
I opened my mouth to scream, choking down water as my vision started to blur.
I was going to die.
Had he been shot too? Or was I just that disposable?
I choked down more water, my throat burned, and my body pulsed. And then I saw him. Pace’s smiling face teasing me when we were kids before our parents abandoned us.
Before the dumpster.
Sitting in front of my bed playing King and Queen.
Our birthday the next year, and the first taste of cake I ever had. It had been ruined when my dad came in and slammed his fist into it, breaking the pony on top, but at least I’d had a bite.
I smiled as my vision turned dark.
I’m coming for you, Pace.
I’m coming.
It’s so warm. How nice.
The last thought I had before water overtook me was that I was strong. I’d jumped when I wanted to run. I’d fought when I wanted to scream.
My brother would be proud.
And soon we would be together.
My nightmare: over.
CHAPTER THREE
“It takes many steppingstones, you know, for a man to rise. None can do it unaided.” —Joe Bonanno
Santino
Bullets speared through the water, nearly striking me as the muscles in my arms burned against the rough, cold waves. It was too dark to see much of anything—thank God she had blond hair. I dove toward the slabs of broken concrete and black rocks that formed the edge of the cliff. Beneath the water, I spotted a faint flash of white.
She was sinking fast.
Because she was fucking panicking.
Her eyes were open, petrified.
She was sucking in water.
Shit.
Muscles strained as I grabbed her arm and tugged her to the surface. Her body was limp against my chest, her head lolled forward and then to the side, her blond hair was matted to the cuts on her face.
“Don’t you fucking die,” I hissed as I swam us to the mouth of an inlet where I’d hidden the boat in some reeds. I heaved her body over the edge and jumped in, clothes soaked with lake water impeding my progress as they tried to drag me below the water’s surface. After maybe thirty seconds, I was in.