Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
My hands are shaking as he tugs me toward him slowly. His voice is barely a whisper now. “I want your rage and, if need be, your willingness to die as you take your enemies down.”
“But that’s not who I am. I don’t murder or hurt people. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt myself.” Of course, someone like him wouldn’t be able to see that or understand it.
His face shifts, the snarl out of his mouth making me flinch back to safety. “What the fuck is wrong with you that you can’t hurt those who hurt you? I didn’t tell you to go find an innocent.” He kicks the corpse on the floor, but I keep my eyes firmly on him. “He would kill you no matter what. Hell, he was probably planning to one day kill you while he raped you. This man had death in his eyes, and you were just going to roll over and let him do it?” The last is snarled in my face, his breath hot on my skin.
I turn my face to the side to stay out of range of a strike, but he won’t have me retreating from him. Everyone else, he wants me to fight, but not him. His hands come around my waist, and I shove at his chest. “No. Didn’t you just give me that little pep talk of death, telling me to fight? This right here…is me fighting.”
He chuckles for real this time. But it’s dark and deadly. “You can fight all you want, Priscilla. In fact, please do. I’ll take pleasure when you submit to me once and for all. The moment all the fight leaves your body, all the anger, all the fear, and you give yourself over to me. That is what I’m waiting for. So tell me, what are you waiting for?”
Tears thread hot and wet through the already flaking blood on my face. He’d wiped some of it off, but I still felt covered in it. I can only shake my head again. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I guess…for the pain to finally end. I just want one day when I’m not humiliated or hurt to please someone else. One day.”
He pulls me to my feet gently as I wobble on unsteady legs. “Come here.”
It occurs to me that guards will be coming at any moment. That we need to make a run for it while we can. Or maybe he can make a run for it while I distract whoever comes to check on things.
I open my mouth to suggest that plan, but he buries his face into the side of my neck, making me squeak before I can even get a word out. His nose grinds into my muscle, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to let me know he’s there. When his hand cups the back of my head, I let my eyes close and breathe. I can’t smell him. Nothing but the sharp metallic bite of blood, but something in me calms, loosens, and relaxes as he cradles the nape of my neck.
He takes a few breaths, then lifts his face away to stare down at me. “Now that we can think more clearly, tell me about the guards.”
I’m curious about what the fuck just happened, but I can’t bring myself to ask why his breathing against my neck settled us both down. “There are usually only a couple on duty at a time. One to guard this area, one to switch off sporadically. There also might be some outside the lab. I don’t know.” It’s been a long time since I memorized all of the guards’ schedules. I’ve been preoccupied with the ones guarding Ivan’s cell.
He only nods and stares off at the wall behind me for a moment. “Let’s get out of here first, and then we can figure everything else out.”
Lightning fast, he turns to grab the legs of the dead guard and strips his boots, pants, and shirt in seconds. I barely have time to gape when he puts them on himself and digs into the pocket for the keys. “Let’s get the hell out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”
There’s not enough time for me to ask questions. He’s already tucking my hand into his and leading me over the body toward the door. Then we are in the hall, and everything seems to snap up around me like a high-speed chase.
We are running through the hall, and he looks at me for a second. “Underground, right?”
I only nod and clutch his hand tighter in my own. If we get separated, he’ll leave me, and I’ll be dead within hours. My father doesn’t take failure well. The long hallway is empty, and we race toward cinder block walls through the maze of my father’s underground labs. It’s extensive. Even I haven’t been through some of it. And he delights in showing me off to his friends.