Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 85183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
"Kill me," I whisper.
He laughs. "Oh, I know you want to die, princess. Which is why I'm not going to let you die," he tells me. "You see, when I brought you here, I intended to use you as bait, to lure Jude to me. I just wanted to kill him, to watch him suffer, but then I saw young Caleb's face when he saw you. I saw how much it hurt him, and it made me think, I'm not going to kill you." A sadistic laugh rumbles from his chest, and all I can think is how much he sounds like the devil. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm going to send you back to JP, just like this. Broken, unrecognisable, unsalvageable. This will hurt him more than anything I could physically do to him. I'm going to let him find you. I'm going to leave his dirty whore and his dead brother right here for him." He yanks me up further and twists my face to the side.
There, a few feet away from me is Caleb, his dead, milky eyes staring at me. A desperate cry rips from my throat, and I slam my eyes shut.
"He's coming for me, you see. I could kill you and then kill him, but this is just too good of an opportunity to let slip. I'll kill him eventually, but it's so much better this way, so much more torturous," he whispers.
I cough a raspy laugh. "I'm dying anyway, arsehole."
He grabs my chin, jerking it to his face. "No, sweet thing, you're not."
He releases me, and my head hits the ground with a thud. I feel his fingers wrap around my arm, and then a sharp prick. I open my eyes enough to see him injecting something into my arm. "Antibiotics," he says with a smug smile. "You're going to survive long enough for him to find you, and if you die after that, well then, poor JP should have gotten here sooner shouldn't he?" he snickers.
I want to scream. This is all I have wanted for so long, and now he's ripping it from me, and it feels like the cruelest form of torture. A sob chokes from my throat, and he laughs in response. He presses his lips to mine, making me feel sick. "I knew I would make you cry eventually, sweetheart." He strokes my cheek. "You tell JP, I'm going to kill him. I'll be seeing you soon, princess." He winks, turns away from me, and then he's gone.
The door slams shut, leaving me in darkness. Even with antibiotics, I'm probably still going to die, he's just bought me another day perhaps.
I lay there on the cold ground, my body broken, my mind shattered. I reach out until my hand brushes against Caleb's cold fingers. I hold onto him, as though if I will him to, he will come back to me. I cry until I lose consciousness again.
The car bumps over the worn pavement before rolling to a stop. Marney shuts the engine off, pushes the door open, and pops the trunk.
I climb out, then reach back inside to grab two guns that I shove into the waist of my jeans. Marney's loaded down with guns. We look like we're going into a goddamn zombie apocalypse.
I have no idea what to expect, but I try to prepare myself for how fucked up Tor will most likely be. The images from the video Joe sent me jar to memory, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Leaning my head back, I wipe my palm down my drenched face.
Each step seems to be in slow motion, each breath seems forced, like if I don't remind myself I'll forget to fucking breathe. I'm on high-alert. This is Joe. He should have guards all around this motherfucker. He knows we're coming, and yet... nothing. Just the sound of crickets chirping and leaves crunching underneath our boots.
The only reason no one has shot at us yet is because Joe wants us to get inside. For the first time in my life, I'm afraid I'm actually about to die. It's not the thought of death that bothers me; it's the idea of being killed before I ever get to them.
A metal building comes into view. My nerves tense. My throat tightens. This is fear. My brother and my fucking heart are inside this building, and I know damn well if they aren't dead, they're in a state worse than death could ever fucking be.
We stop in front of a cracked, rusted door. Marney glances back at me, his eyes uncertain. Using the barrel of the gun, I push on the door. The worn hinges groan as it slowly swings open into a large, empty room. To the right, hanging above a doorway is a single bulb barely flickering. It casts a yellow haze over a rickety door. I know Joe has done this to build the suspense. I kick the door open, and it bangs against the wall, the loud crash reverberating into the open ceilings. I wait. Nothing. Dim light bulbs dot the room, and the only sound I hear is water dripping from some old pipe.