Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Assuming I make it to the police station after this detour.
He didn’t save you just to kill you.
That’s probably true.
I don’t know, I don’t trust anything right now. If Santa Claus showed up, I’d probably throw a shoe at him and run away.
The building we’ve entered looks nice, at least.
Sure would be a shame to be murdered in a crappy location.
I smile faintly at my own dark humor, but my amusement fades when the guy stops outside a door—1802—and draws a key card out of his pocket.
Are we at a hotel?
I’m immediately alarmed. The digital lock on the door flashes green and then he opens it.
It’s dark inside, but he flips on a light as soon as he’s through the door. He seems at ease and not like he feels the need to keep an eye on me, so I guess it’s okay, and I slowly follow him inside.
It’s not a hotel, it’s an apartment.
A really nice apartment.
I look around, surprised at how spacious it is. The ceilings are high, the walls are painted a dark blue, and the curtains are open. I drift over to look at the impressive view of the city out the window behind the expensive-looking couch, but as soon as I approach, the curtains start closing.
I jump since no one is standing near me, then I look back and see him with a remote control in his hand.
“Remote control curtains. Fancy.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, bending to place the remote back down on his coffee table.
I assume it’s his coffee table, but I also can’t believe he lives here. I know a lot of rich kids go to my university and plenty of them probably have great places, but you’re supposed to struggle in college, aren’t you? He’s already living like he’s running a Fortune 500 company.
“Do you have a roommate?” I ask him.
“No.” He answers as he rips his mask off, and when he does, my jaw hinges open before I can stop it.
I don’t know what I expected him to look like. Maybe it was all my thoughts earlier about Erik and Christine, a deformed genius hidden behind a mask right before I met an actual man in a mask who… now that I’m thinking about it, actually sort of kidnapped me and brought me back to his lair.
Maybe I was expecting a deformed but brilliant maniac who lovingly stalks the woman he likes from the shadows before finally bursting into her life.
I was not prepared for him to be so handsome.
I thought Kyle was cute, but this guy…
He’s the opposite of Kyle in every way. Kyle is blonde and has a playful sparkle in his eye, while this guy looks intense and kind of… cruel.
I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes me feel like he’s cruel, but I find myself suddenly understanding why his friend laughed when I described him as a good guy.
As handsome as he is, I would have been far less inclined to follow this guy somewhere to be alone with him than I would have a brilliant, deformed genius who stalked me. That, maybe I could twist in my imagination with defenses about his good intentions. Mix in sympathy and ignite a desire to comfort him, to make up for the cruelty he had surely experienced at the hands of others.
But the unmasked man standing before me looks like the tormentor, not the tormented.
I can imagine all the kids he went to high school with whose lives he probably made absolute hell.
He scowls like it’s his face’s natural setting, swiping his fingers through his mass of dark hair to muss it since he’s been wearing the mask for so long, then he looks my way and pins me with his piercing blue eyes.
I don’t remember what we were talking about.
I’m lucky I remember my name.
Before, I felt awkward, but now I feel really awkward.
And I want to leave.
If Kyle triggered the chorus of Begin Again in the coffee shop before I knew what an asshole he was, this guy is definitely giving I Knew You Were Trouble When You Walked In.
“Um, so…” My mind races my heart, and I try to find a clean way out of the hole I feel sunk in. “Your phone,” I say, finally grasping at something. “Mine is back at the frat house, so I… I followed you in here because I was hoping to use your phone.”
The corners of his mouth tip up in a dark smile. He drops the mask and saunters closer. “My phone?”
I nod, unconsciously taking a step back.
My retreat amuses him. I can see it in his eyes. He keeps moving toward me though, so I guess he’s comfortable with making me uncomfortable.
“The phone that I had on me the whole time we were together? You had to come back to my apartment to use that?”