Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
“Cowboy,” I whispered, my hushed voice echoing around the square box of a room. “Tell me you’re okay . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut. “What have they done to you . . .” It wasn’t really a question. My beautiful Cowboy. They had hurt him, badly, all because he was with me.
Cowboy tried to speak but coughed up blood. I prayed it was from the inside of his mouth, not from something they’d done to him inside. “I’m good, cher,” he replied weakly; he tried to smile again. The skin on his bottom lip split when he did.
I tried to pull my hands loose from the ties that bound me, but I couldn’t. I looked at Cowboy, catching him watching me. “What will we do?” I asked. We weren’t naive; we’d been brought into this room for a reason. After the way I spoke to him, I wondered if he’d brought me to this building just to kill me. Juan Garcia was a man who never lost. I ran before he’d tired of me. In his eyes, it was the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game.
I was the mouse.
And I’d been caught.
I looked at the walls that surrounded us. Remnants of blood were ingrained into the rough-textured material. I fought for breath. This room had one purpose. To house those about to die.
“Sia,” Cowboy said, pulling back my attention. “Hush will get us out.” I didn’t dare let myself hope that was the case. Especially when the door opened again and yet another man walked through. A man who, I could tell instantly, belonged to the newest associates of Juan’s company, a shaven-headed man with white-power and Nazi tattoos adorning his skin. In his hand was a knife. He sauntered into the room, his eyes on both of us.
My heart kicked into a sprint as he circled us before stopping in front of me. “Get the fuck away from her,” Cowboy said. I had never heard his voice so venomous before. The Nazi looked at Cowboy over his shoulder.
“Just wanted to say hello,” he responded and then walked back the door. It opened, and the Nazi dragged someone else in. I could see a red dress, similar to mine. But then I sucked in a harsh breath when the girl’s face and body came into view. A noise of pure sympathy came from the back of my throat when I saw her flesh. Her eyes were downcast, but I wasn’t sure she could actually see. The Nazi abandoned the girl in the center of the floor, under the single lightbulb, and left the room.
Her body closed inwards, but then she lifted her head. I shuddered, my heart tearing in two when I saw her face. Every inch of her skin looked like my back.
Acid, I immediately thought. They’d poured acid on all of her skin. Even her head was damaged, hair all gone save for a single clump at the back. Her hair had been brown. One of her eyes was blinded, a cloudy milky hue smothering the iris. But the other appeared intact. Brown eyes. Kind eyes. Eyes similar in color to . . .
I choked, refusing to believe it was true. Refusing to believe my eyes. That this was—
“Sia?” The girl froze.
Even though they were tied, I felt my hands shake. My eyes widened as the girl shuffled toward us, her teeth gritting with the pain she was clearly in. When she arrived at my feet, I wanted to turn away. I couldn’t bear to see how she looked. How she could barely move, the skin all over her body damaged beyond repair.
What had he done . . .?
“Sia,” she repeated breathlessly, like it had just taken all her energy to lie by my feet.
“Mi-Michelle?” I managed to croak.
I heard Cowboy’s quick inhale. But I wouldn’t break my gaze from hers. I couldn’t . . . She had been my friend.
If my hands were free I would have laid a palm on her cheek and I would have promised that everything would be okay. But bound, all I could do was say, “What have they done to you?”
Michelle sniffed. I struggled to see the tear as it fell from her undamaged eye and traveled down her scarred cheek. “Over and over again . . .” she said. She looked at Cowboy and shied away, scurrying near my feet.
“He would never hurt you,” I assured her, but then I felt foolish. All she’d ever known were evil men. Why would she believe any promise? I looked at her red dress. I knew exactly which of those evil men was responsible for this.
“I tried to escape,” she continued, her fleshless lips trembling. I held still. “He caught me.” She flicked her eye up to me then back down to the ground. “Not long after you succeeded.”