Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 131926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I suck in a gasp.
These girls are in dog cages.
“Oh, no, no, no, no.”
I race to the first cage and instantly drop to my knees, the desperation sitting heavily on my chest. “We’re going to get you out of here,” I call, pulling on the metal bars and frantically searching around as the girls squint against the light.
Grayson manically searches the room, tearing at fixtures and scanning every little crevice trying to find the keys. “I can’t fucking find them,” he roars, the frustration sinking through him as we listen to the gunshots above, and while he wants nothing more than to free these girls, he also wants to be upstairs, having his boys’ backs.
The girl in the cage behind me raises her arm and points across the room. “There,” she murmurs, her voice a breathy, exhausted whisper.
Grayson’s flashlight whips around to the section of wall that she’s pointing to and we find four small keys attached to a single nail in the wall.
Grayson races for it.
He throws two keys at me before dropping down in front of the other two girls and quickly trying to figure out which key belongs to each cage. We get two of the cages open before he takes the keys from my hand and points back at the open cages. “Here, you start getting them out,” he says while darting across to the other cages.
I don’t hesitate and reach into the first one. The girl is young, maybe only fifteen. She holds up her hand and desperately latches onto my wrist. “Please,” she whispers. “Get us out of here.”
“We’re working on it,” I promise her. “You’re going home.”
I awkwardly get her out as she cries in pain, her body cramping and malnourished after being down here for so long. Her legs are wobbly, and she has no choice but to crawl across the floor as I start on the next girl.
It takes us far too long to free each of the girls, and after ten minutes, Grayson has carried each of them up the stairs.
They sit on the bed with a broken demeanor, but we’re not out of trouble just yet. Realizing that getting each of them out of here is going to be harder than we originally thought, Grayson presses a few buttons on his phone and holds it up to his ear as he stands in the open doorway, peering down the hall. “What’s going on?” he snaps into the phone.
There’s a slight pause before he looks back at me. “Alright. We need help down here, and another fucking car.” His gaze sweeps over the naked, shivering girls. “Make it quick.”
He shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans as he watches me. “Cruz has what he needs. He’s coming to help.” I nod and watch as Grayson peers back out the door. “You good here? I’m going to grab that box of jewelry and meet you back here. We’ll go out the fucking window if we have to.”
I nod again, my heart kicking up a notch as he slips out of the door, leaving me alone to protect the girls, but he’ll only be gone a few seconds. Wanting to give them even a fraction of privacy, I start digging through the old-fashioned dresser and pulling out random clothes. None of it looks even a little bit good but it’ll help cover them up. “Here,” I say, dropping the clothes in front of them. “It’s nothing great, but it’ll do until we can get you out of here.”
The girls don’t say a word, but the way they dive for the clothes tells me just how grateful they are.
Hearing a noise down the hallway, my hand tightens on the gun as my body shakes with adrenaline. This is too much.
I put myself between the door and the girls and hold up the gun, my finger hovering over the trigger.
The noise gets louder.
Footstep after footstep.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I murmur to myself like a chant on constant replay.
A shadow crosses in front of the open door, and within the blink of an eye, a large, bald man covered in tattoos fills the door frame, his wide eyes focused right on me. “Not today, princess,” he spits as the girls shrink and panic with fear.
He barrels into the room, and just as my finger goes to squeeze the trigger, a loud BANG comes from down the hallway. The man crumples to the ground as a bullet pierces through the side of his head, splattering blood all over the wall.
The girls scream in horror, and fuck, I’m right there with them.
“Ugh,” Grayson says, appearing out of nowhere and pushing his body aside in disgust. “Come on,” he says, looking at me and the four clothed girls behind me as he walks into the room and shoves the drawer of jewelry into my hands. “We have to go.”