Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80283 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80283 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
But eventually, I retreat to that dreamy state where I can wander for hours, needing no other entertainment. In my mind is a land of mist and magic filled with a cast of characters who are always embroiled in one epic adventure or another.
When I was younger, that place was so vivid I was certain I traveled there when I crawled under my bed to play pretend, just like the Pevensies visiting Narnia via wardrobe. Eventually, however, I realized my imagination was simply a little more active than most.
It’s another tick in the “maybe I hallucinated the kidnapping” column, I suppose, but that encounter was so different than anything I’ve experienced while daydreaming.
In my imagination, I always feel safe.
That day, I’d been terrified.
For the first minutes in that shed, or shack or…whatever it was, I’d been too hysterical to focus on anything the woman had said. Those memories are the most frightening, even more so than the things she told me after, but they live in a back corner of my mind, tucked away with the morning I watched my father fall off the roof while trying to unplug the chimney and the time Zan stayed underwater in that lake so long I was sure she’d drowned.
Against my will, that’s where my thoughts go now, to the corner full of terrifying things, pawing through psychic keepsakes I wish I could get rid of. I know fear is useful and that bad memories help us learn from our mistakes, but do I really need every memory of every childhood trauma? Every time a bully shoved me off the merry-go-round? Every time my sisters fought my playground battles for me, defending the sister who couldn’t defend herself?
Or simply wouldn’t defend herself.
In most cases, I don’t see the point in fighting back. I am the runt of the litter and have a debilitating stutter. Whether fighting with fists or words, I am doomed to lose. If I can’t avoid or escape it, my best bet is to remain stoic and silent rather than give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me fight, suffer, and fail.
So who was that woman who kneed Jeffrey in the balls and made a run for it?
I honestly don’t know, but…I like her. She seems like the kind of person who solves her own problems.
Someone who maybe solves other people’s problems, too.
It can’t be too late to salvage Sabrina and Andrew’s relationship. I can figure out a way to run damage control. I just need to get away from Jeffrey first.
I wait until I hear his car start outside, signaling that he’s taken the bait and decided that I must have left on foot, and then crawl stiffly out from under the sink.
“Ow,” I mutter as I stand, wincing at the painful creaking of my joints from being contorted for so long.
But I don’t stop to stretch. I don’t have much time. It’s a forty-minute round trip to the village. Add in the thirty to forty minutes it will take Jeffrey to search the businesses on the high street, and I’ve got barely an hour to get out of here without another altercation with the General.
Tossing dirty and clean clothes together in my duffle bag, along with bottles of prescription medicine, pain reliever, and toiletries, I corral my personal belongings in less than ten minutes. Thanks to my illness, my sewing things are still mostly packed, so it only takes another ten to drag them out to the car—catching my breath for a moment in the cool night air halfway through my second trip, because stairs are even more exhausting when no one is chasing you up them.
Finally, I grab my duffle from the bedroom and head for the stairs, pausing by Jeffrey’s sofa bed.
For a moment, I consider writing him a note to thank him for nursing me back to health, but then I see the phone sitting on the table by the bookshelves, and my anger comes rushing back.
With one call—one lie—he might have undone what took years of careful planning and scheming to accomplish.
I realize it’s hypocritical to hate Jeffrey for being a liar when all I’ve done for the past few weeks is lie to almost everyone I love. But my lies were noble, meant to ensure the happiness of my nearest and dearest. Jeffrey’s lie was a sneaky one, tricking me into dropping my guard long enough for him to ruin everything.
I can only hope he didn’t succeed.
I nearly grab the phone and dial Sabrina—I’m dying to find out if she’s okay and to assure her that she and Andrew can get through this if they’ll just listen to their hearts—but I can’t risk being here when Jeffrey gets back. He could get halfway to the village and decide to turn around, so I need to hit the road.