Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“But I’m not perfect,” she says.
“I’m not either,” I reply.
“And I am not the only one who wants out of here,” she adds.
Also true.
“Then you know what I’d be willing to sacrifice,” she says.
I lower my eyes. “Trust. Dignity.”
“My soul.”
Her words are as heavy as my heart feels in my chest.
And it takes me a while to respond. “You and I, we’re not so different.”
“Maybe not,” she replies. “But you’re a hypocrite if you think it’s okay to murder people to be freed from this cell, but then judge me for using my body to get out.”
“Hypocr…” I have trouble repeating the word she just used. I don’t recognize it.
“My life, my family, are not your ticket out of this cell,” she says.
Her words force me to look at her. “Just like I am not your ticket out of this cell either,” I rebuke.
She looks down at the floor, drawing lines in the dust. “Then I guess we’ll both rot in here.”
Fuck. The mere thought makes my fingers coil up and my nails dig into my skin until it bleeds.
“Maybe I deserve to be in here,” she mutters after a while, almost like she’s talking to herself. She snorts. “Papa always liked seeing me in misery … now he’s got his wish.”
What?
Does she really mean that?
“Why do you care so much?”
She looks up. “What?”
“Why do you care about him if he makes you feel like that?”
Her pretty, round lips part, but it takes her a while to respond. “He’s the only family I have left. Of course I care.”
“But does he even care about you?”
She gazes at me like she’s seen a ghost, her face getting even paler than usual.
“You said your father would come and save you,” I add. “But all his men have done is try to get you killed.”
More tears well up in her eyes, and she turns around, away from me, but I can still hear her cry. I never expected it to hit me the way it does.
Maybe not everything is as a black and white as I thought it was.
And maybe I’m not the only one who’s never felt love before.
I crawl toward her and wrap my arm around her. Even though I know she tried to use me… I’ve used her too. I used her tongue, her lips, her mouth, her skin, and made every inch of her body mine. So if she’s the villain, then I’m an even worse one.
“I’m confused,” she mutters. “I thought you hated me?”
“I do …” I say. “But I don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t want to use you to escape. I don’t want to use anyone. I don’t want to be the bad guy.”
I haul her into my embrace. “No one does. But we all become one when faced with death.”
She leans back. “Is that how you see it?”
I nod. “It’s who I am because of this cell. A beast. A killer.” My nostrils flare. “A monster.”
“What if you could choose differently?”
Her eyes sparkle with a kind of hope that I’ve never seen before, and it moves me.
So much that I can’t help but grab her face and smash my lips onto hers.
I know it’s wrong, I know she doesn’t want me, but I want her, need her, crave her soul to be mine.
And I kiss her as hard as I can before that sparkle in her eyes is lost forever. Because it’s the only thing that keeps me from tearing a hole into my own body and ripping out my heart.
My hand snakes around her neck, pulling her in closer as I kiss her deeply, my tongue twisting around hers. Kissing her is like a dream I don’t want to wake up from.
But the dream shatters the second I open my eyes and see these bars behind us, caging us in.
“God … You are going to be the end of me,” I murmur.
She gasps, her lips still red and swollen. “What do you mean?”
“I need to succeed,” I say, licking my lips. “Or I will die in this place.”
She swallows and pulls back, her face icy cold. “You mean you need to kill my papa.”
“I have no choice,” I reply, my jaw tightening, feeling the tension between us. “I must do what my owner wants from me.”
“But he won’t kill you,” she says, and she pulls out of my grasp and stands up like she’s suddenly turned to stone. “Why can’t you fight them?”
I stare up at her from the ground. “Because that won’t get me my freedom.”
She glares at me without saying a word.
“Freedom,” I reiterate. “That is the only thing that has always mattered. It’s what he promised me.”
She steps back, more tears welling up in her eyes. “But at what cost?” The look on her face hurts. “A heart.” Her lips quiver. “Mine.”