Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Fuck off,” I managed, wincing at how sore my throat felt already.
Then I was fighting like I thought I would just moments ago. Flailing, wiggling, smacking, hitting, scratching.
“Fine. Do it the hard way,” he hissed as he fought me, rolling me until I was on my stomach on the mattress, my arm arched up so far up my back that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was dislocated.
Not that that mattered when his hand went to the back of my head and crushed it into the bed.
I had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with acquiring blankets whenever I found them on clearance or being given away. I guess it was another holdover from being on the streets and nearly freezing to death some winters.
But it also meant I had a pile of them on my bed at all times, little actual security blankets.
They were great when the night temperatures dropped and the drafty windows did little to keep the cold out.
Not so much when your face was stuffed in them and you couldn’t breathe.
I wanted to fight.
My fear was making me angry.
But with his body weight pressing into me, and my arm disabled, there was almost nothing I could do but rock and wiggle and try to inch forward, try to get closer to the edge of the bed so I could hang over, maybe get a good breath.
“You could stop all this if you tell me where to find them.”
My free arm shot out, finding the pile of blankets and clawing at them until I created a pocket big enough to draw in a desperate breath.
The burn of oxygen in my starved lungs recharged me, making me grab for the footboard, using it as leverage to flip myself over.
Only to be on the receiving end of a blow. It was meant to hit my nose. And if I hadn’t been moving, it likely would have broken it. As it was, he grazed off the side a bit.
The pain still exploded from the center of my face and ricocheted everywhere else, making my eyes and teeth hurt.
But I managed to free a foot from his body, using it to brace on his stomach and kick off, sending him flying back and off the bed.
I scrambled off the other side and sucked in a breath to do something that bruised my ego to resort to.
Scream.
And pray someone would come.
Or at the very least, call the cops.
He was faster, though, rushing up and over the bed, throwing me back against the wall. The impact was enough to silence me, to make pain shoot through my skull.
He was done negotiating with me then.
Instead, he wrestled me to the ground, face smashed into the hardwood floors as he grabbed each of my wrists, securing them with what felt like zip ties. He pulled them painfully tight, biting into my skin when I tried to move.
The next thing I knew, I was being dragged backward, only to have something wrapped tightly around my mouth.
It wasn’t until it was secured behind my head that I recognized it for what it was.
The sash from the thick fleece robe Megs had given me for Christmas. It had been on the foot of the bed and had likely hit the floor with the struggle, giving him the perfect gag.
“I’ll find them myself,” he snapped, shoving me back down toward the floor.
With my hands secured behind my back, and abs that weren’t in the best of shape to pull strength from, there was no way to stop myself from falling forward, from cracking my cheek off the wood.
There was something sharp beneath me—the edge of a jagged floorboard, maybe—that caught and sliced across my lip, the burn immediate. The trickle down my chin followed quickly after.
For just a moment, I let myself lie there, taking slow, careful breaths, trying to calm my frazzled mind, to think past the adrenaline flowing through my veins.
The intruder rushed around the room.
His movements weren’t random, though. The way he not only emptied my drawers but removed them to check under and behind told me he at least had some experience with robbing people before. Or, of course, hiding precious shit himself.
With a grumble, he made his way into my bathroom, sending things crashing to the floor, scattering all around as I finally turned over onto my side and started to fold upward.
I could get out of the zip ties.
I’d love to claim I knew how, thanks to my own badassery. But it was all thanks to Megs this time. She’d learned how from some of the more radical protesters who demonstrated it, so people who were being rounded up and mass-arrested could get out of their ties and away.
It was a simple thing, actually.
You raise your arms as high up your back as you can, then you force them down as quickly and hard as you can against your ass while trying to pull your wrists outward toward your sides.