Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Me (10:25): I got a new phone because I’m undercover, yes. I didn’t know it was your brother’s number. Delete the message that says who it is, plz. And don’t think anything of texting me. I don’t mind.
I closed my eyes as I thought about the day I’d had.
Everything on my body was sore.
I was in shape, or so I’d thought.
But being in shape and kicking people’s asses to stay alive were two different things.
My fists and head, though, were in the worst shape, and before I knew it, my eyes were closing before I even realized it.
Knowing that Freya was safe was like a balm over my tired soul. The uncomfortable bed meant nothing as exhaustion overtook me.
***
Freya
Friday, December 11th
Tears filled my eyes as, once again, I looked at the lights that illuminated the front of my house.
I’d woken up in the middle of the night.
Again.
Looking at my clock that shined at the very front of the room, I sighed.
12:02 AM.
That was the same time I woke up nearly every single night.
I didn’t know why.
12:02 wasn’t significant.
Nothing had happened at that time that I remembered.
But I was alone.
Corey was gone.
Nobody was here to know how tortured I was each and every night.
With the newly realized loneliness I felt, as I thought about how shitty my life had become, I started to cry.
He’d died two months ago, but it felt like just yesterday. I’d been floundering ever since.
Pulling out my phone, I texted him once more.
It was something I’d been doing for a few days now, and it seemed to keep me sane.
Freya: I miss you. I miss your face. The way you part your hair. The way you used to leave your dirty socks on the floor in the middle of the living room even though you don’t live with me anymore. I wish you were home. I wish you hadn’t left me. I love you. How am I supposed to go on?
As soon as I sent the message, though, I realized what I’d done.
I’d sent those messages before bed last night, and I’d thought that I’d dreamed them, but now that the evidence was right in front of my face, I realized that in my haste to relieve the pain, I hadn’t read the previous messages.
But now, with my vision not as hazy, I realized that I hadn’t dreamed the encounter.
That everything that had happened was real.
Someone had my brother’s phone.
Ridley had my brother’s phone.
Corey: You just do. You live, because I said you should.
My heart started to pound.
Freya: Who is this? Why are you doing this?
Corey: Ridley. I just got a new phone, and I know you’re not texting me, but I want you to know that someone would miss you if you were gone. Don’t do that to them.
I don’t know what made me do it, but I changed the name in my phone. I couldn’t keep texting Corey.
He wasn’t there anymore, but Ridley was.
And right then and there, a relationship started…one I could never expect to lead where it led.
Chapter 3
If you hear ‘Oh, hell no’ it’s already too late.
-Note to self
Ridley
Friday, December 24th
“Get the fuck away from me!” I heaved myself sideways, displacing the body that was on my side and trying to pin me down. “And don’t try to eat my goddamned cookie again. The next time I won’t give you a warning.”
The guy went flying, his head hitting the brick wall on the other side of my cell.
It hit so hard that the bone cracked, making a sickening sound that would have made a lesser man heave.
I, of course, didn’t.
I was just trying to fucking survive.
This motherfucking place was filled with people that wanted to kill me.
I guessed being the brother of a cop was just as good as being a cop.
They didn’t care that I wasn’t a cop (even though I was, but they didn’t know that). They just knew that I was related to one, and they didn’t take kindly to it.
My stupid brother should’ve kept his fucking trap shut.
He never knew how to do that, though.
Which meant I had to beat every mother fucker in this whole fuckin’ place up, in order to establish hierarchy.
Whistles blew as the guards finally chose to show.
Usually they hung back a while, hoping that the fight would break up on its own.
It never did. They were shitheads.
They also didn’t know anything about me, which was the way it was supposed to be.
Because if they did, they wouldn’t be doing the things that they were.
For instance, they wouldn’t keep trying to toss my cell.
The warden had to come stop them three times in the last week.
I’d told the warden point blank that if they tried to anymore, I’d beat the shit out of them.
He hadn’t taken kindly to that and had threatened me. But I’d taken care of that, too.