Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 99381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I know immediately, and my heart squeezes. “Don’t you fucking dare!” I scream.
“It’s been fun, Chaos. Thank you for loving me even when you couldn’t say it out loud.” He smirks playfully. And I throw myself weakly in his direction.
He’s too quick. All of it happens in a blink of an eye. Emily leans forward on the edge of her stool in anticipation, waiting excitedly, her breath held. I can’t stand or chase him or drag him to me as he grabs the bottle and gulps down the contents.
His face scrunches up as he wipes his mouth. “Definitely not sweet.” It’s almost instantly his body lurches backward, and I barely have time to catch him as he falls. His weight slams into me, and I smack the back of my head against the brick wall, but I don’t even feel it.
“Ford,” I squeak as I stare down at his unconscious, pale face. “Ford!” I cry. “Ford! Wake up right fucking now!” I scream violently. My hands are shaking as I slap him. I slap him again as hard as I can. I wait for his devilish smirk or the telltale sign that he’s bated me into arguing with him. I wait for him, but there’s nothing.
Emily whistles a tune as she scoots off the stool. “My Peter would’ve died for me as well,” she says as she rests the gun over her shoulder, dangling it casually with a loose wrist. “Oh well, now you can die in here together.”
“Let us out!” I scream. “Ford. Oh God. Ford, please.” I put my fingers to his throat, trying to find a pulse. It’s barely there. But it’s there. He’s still with me. “Don’t you fucking leave me, you asshole!”
“Well, toodaloo!” Emily says as she moves toward the staircase.
“Why didn’t you kill me too?” I scream violently, desperately trying to tap Ford back to consciousness. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.
Please, let me fix this.
Her gaze is cold and distant as she looks back over her shoulder at me. “Because that would be too easy. You and I will forever live with the same pain, knowing what it’s like to have someone we love taken from us and being left behind in an abyss.”
I realize then with startling clarity that she most likely wants to be caught, wants to be killed. I wonder if she was ever a normal woman or if the trauma fucked her up so badly she became this wraith of a creature. I can’t empathize with any of it as I scream, unhinged, chaotically, wanting it to tear everything around us down.
“Oooh, a trophy,” she coos, picking up one of Ford’s crowbars.
“Leave that there!” I yell.
“Why?” she asks daringly. “It’s not like anyone is going to find you two. Besides, he’s already a dead man. And a dead man doesn’t need such an uncivilized weapon.”
“Says the bitch who poisons people. You’re a coward!” I bite out.
She shrugs, unaffected by my words, as she reaches for the door. “I’m a woman living in a man’s world. I found the tools that work for me. Not all of us are handed everything, princess.”
Without so much as another glance, she opens the door. Bright light filters in and blinds me as she steps out and closes the door behind her. My heart is rattling in my chest, and I think I’m about to have a panic attack. My eyes adjust to the gloom again as I stare down at his thick eyelashes.
What the fuck do I do?
“Ford?” My voice cracks.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Stop.
I slap myself across the face, hoping it wakes up my slow moving body and reins in my focus. I taste blood, and it’s enough to drag me back to my senses. I need to get us out of here.
I kiss his forehead. “I’ll get us out. I promise.”
I drag myself across the cement and onto the bed. My legs are still wobbly as I stretch my arm through the bars toward the remaining crowbar. I can’t reach it, so I try to jump, and my ankle gives out. I scream, feeling a sharp, shooting pain as I crumple to the aged mattress.
I take a deep breath and then two more, staring at the crowbar dangling above my head. I dig my nails into the cement wall, determined I will get us out no matter what.
With a steely resolve, I get back to my feet. It’s not until the fourth jump that my fingers brush the edge of the crowbar. By the sixth, it clatters off the step, and I barely catch it, terrified it’ll fall in the opposite direction.
The smooth metal is cold in my hands, and I inhale, knowing this is the weapon Ford chooses to kill with. Even though it’s irrelevant at the moment, I wonder how many people he’s murdered. I accepted the fact that he was a killer from the start. But if anyone should live, it’s him.