Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
The side of my face aches so bad I don’t dare touch it, but something’s dripping down my ear. Once more, I try to push up the slab of metal, but the effort only aggravates the wound in my side, making me dizzy with pain.
I have to catch my breath or I might puke.
I lay there for a while with a sinking feeling in my gut.
I’m gonna die here. I can’t feel my leg, fire is eating away at the building, and fuck knows what other wounds I’ve got, because I’m half-numb. Maybe it’s brain damage? A broken spine?
A cough to my side makes me turn my head. First, I spot the gun covered with dust, then fingers inching toward it, but no matter how much Clyde extends them, he can’t reach the weapon. Stupid fuck. Like I’m not dead already. At this point, shooting me would be mercy.
His face is covered with a layer of dust so dense that I only spot him under all the rubble when a flash of red blood comes out of his mouth with another cough.
And yet, somehow, he still manages to look hot. Damn him. Waste of a handsome man.
“Can you move?” I ask, surprised by the strained note in my own voice.
His blue eyes are bloodshot when he turns them to me with the fury I would have deserved if I had been the one to set up the bomb. “What’s it… fucking look like?” he utters, then tries to spit at me, but his red saliva doesn’t go far.
Clyde’s breathing is ragged, and I can just about imagine his lungs filling with blood. It’s not as satisfying as I imagined his death would be. Actually, the whole thing is a giant disappointment. I imagined myself bleeding out after someone stabbed me to death, or after getting half my face shot off, not in a burning building, trapped like a bug under someone’s thumb.
Life always had a way of surprising me in the worst ways imaginable.
“How long till you die?” I ask, because neither of us can move, and quietly waiting for death would be damn awkward. Maybe at least I can agitate him for a while longer.
“Will you… shut… up?” he rasps.
He’s trying to push a chunk of the ceiling off himself, but just like with the slab of metal on top of me, it’s no use. Not only is it too heavy, but we’re both also bleeding out and weak like two rabbits caught in the same snare.
Eventually, he huffs and lets his head fall back to the floor. We’re dying here. He knows it too.
“Help! Here!” Clyde tries when we hear some noise far away, but no one’s coming. And, of course no one would. The guys have no equipment, and this damn place can collapse at any moment. I don’t know if even I would have stormed into a place like this for one of my brothers.
No, I would. Of course I would. There’s a reason they all consider me reckless. But, hey, why not let them know we’re still breathing in here? If Clyde Turner can still scream after the battering he got during the explosion, I can’t do any worse, so I fill my lungs with air and sing, folding my hands into a tube around my mouth.
I remember a sea shanty from my childhood. Its hero isn’t afraid to die in the waves, and if I tune into it hard enough, maybe the anxiety burning at the pit of my stomach will disperse. Predictably, Clyde doesn’t join me.
Time passes, bleeding out of us, and despite wanting to be a nuisance, I give Clyde the peace he asked for. I don’t stop watching him though, not when he’s the only pretty thing in this warehouse full of fire and smoke. The light from the fire raging somewhere nearby gives his eyes an otherworldly glow, and he looks more sad than angry.
Eventually, he turns his head to me with a sigh. “Anything you wish you did before dying?” Clyde asks. This must be him giving in to fate. Welcome to the club.
I glare down my body, at the fragment of the pillar, which keeps me squashed in place and my breathing shallow. Only a miracle can save us at this point, and I’ve never believed in those.
I glance his way, wondering what the purpose of that question is. Neither of us ever cared for the other, and I split his pretty lips on the very night his club accepted him as a prospect. I even caught a glimpse of his dick at the urinals before the mayhem started, and it’s a memory I still return to at times, ten years later.
I meet his gaze, still hungry for his acknowledgement. Too bad he’s such a bastard.
“I—” I start, stalling when true interest passes over his face like the shadow of a fox, and my heart skips a beat. It’s so embarrassing that his attention is all I ever wanted. I’m almost thirty, for fuck’s sake. A part of me wants to make him uncomfortable, to make him regret his club came here to harass us, but halfway through the first syllable, my voice turns sincere, because I’ve lived a lie, and he won’t get to out me anyway. We’re both dying here, so why the hell would I take my secret to the grave?