Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Him.
God, not this again.
Get out, get out, get out!
I needed him.
Needed him to be the cop I believed.
Needed him to be good.
Needed him to save both of us because if he didn’t…I had a horrible feeling there’d be nothing left to save.
A few men ran past in the shadows.
I ducked behind a tree laden with apples.
So I’m in the orchard.
Perhaps there were sheds nearby I could hide in. Storage rooms for fruit and other fragile things.
A short celebration from someone who found a prize quickly smothered into pain as a Master found them.
The grunts of sex sounded to my left, followed by the rhythmic growls of someone who didn’t believe in restraint.
Monsters.
All around me.
Everywhere.
I ran again.
My toes found painful twigs and crunchy leaves, slowing my speed.
I aimed for the soft grass. I could cover more distance that way. I could perhaps run to the battlement and find an archer’s nook.
Darting onto the storm-drowning lawn, I put my head down and raced.
I almost ran over it.
A large plastic gemstone looked as if it’d been dropped by the raging thunder. It sat dull and cloudy as fat raindrops rolled down its fake yellow facets.
It beckoned me forward.
Memories of playing a similar treasure hunt with Krish when we were younger filled my head.
Back then, our parents had hidden large plastic Easter eggs in the garden, holding small toys and chocolates. There hadn’t been repercussions for finding them or rape waiting in the foliage.
My chest ached for innocence.
My body reminded me I’d fallen so far from grace.
I bent down to grab the gem…
…just as a man hurtled from the darkness.
He bowled into me, snatched my wrist, ducked and grabbed the large plastic stone, then hauled me into speed.
“Peter?” I gasped, licking at droplets cascading down my face. The wind pinched my bare skin, making my nipples as hard as the diamonds on my bra.
“Run.” He put his head down and dragged me. I ran as fast as I could beside him, but he was faster, hauling me to speeds I’d never reached before.
“W-Where are we going?” I panted over the wind.
“I have to find the gemstone with the Diamond Kiss in it. I deliberately didn’t put it out. I put it back in the cupboard where all his sick prizes wait, but…he noticed.” Sucking in a tattered breath, he ran faster. “I don’t know where he hid it, but I have to find it before a Master does.”
“Why?”
A crack of lightning lit up his body. Brown hair sopping wet, white tight boxers turning transparent between his legs. His back held a crisscross of swollen ligatures.
I tripped. “Oh my God, your back.”
He winced. “Ignore it. Keep running.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I have to find that gemstone!”
I couldn’t take my eyes off his fresh lacerations as he ran as fast as he could, dragging me like I weighed nothing.
Someone had whipped him.
Recently.
A horrible Master had chained him up, punished him with a whip, and then—
I stopped my thoughts before I could picture him being abused any further.
My teeth ground together; the fury that’d manifested in my heart grew sharper claws.
This place had changed me.
It’d rewired my pieces, and I hated that I couldn’t afford to care or cry or be nice anymore. The storm couldn’t wash away the filth in my blood, but it did drown the old me.
It choked me and suffocated me and my rage chose that moment to spill over.
“Enough!” I yanked on his hand.
Our rain-slippery skin broke apart.
He shot forward; I reeled back.
I rubbed at my knuckles where his nails caught me. “I’ve had enough, Peter. We need to get out of this place. Now. Tonight. Immediately.”
Breathing hard, he locked his knees and stopped his trajectory. With shaking hands, he opened the large gemstone he’d scooped from the grass and angled the piece of paper toward an uplight aimed at a hedgerow of a squirrel.
Instantly, my mind shot back to Henri, thanks to one of the Masters calling him a hibernating squirrel.
God!
Grabbing my dripping hair, I tried to yank him out of my head.
Enough.
Enough.
Enough!
Screaming under my breath, I stomped toward Peter and balled my hands. “We have to do something. I can’t stay here. You can’t stay here. No one can stay here.” I shoved him in the chest. “I heard jewels being hurt out there. Someone is having sex in the orchard. Someone screamed. They’re monsters, Peter, and they’re turning me into one. We can’t stay here! A-Are you listening to me? We need to fight. There are thirty of us, and I only saw fifteen or so of them at dinner. We can…” I shrugged as the hopelessness of everything sat like a rusty anchor in my chest. “We have to try.”
Ignoring my outburst, Peter skimmed the prize. Baring his teeth, he shoved the damp paper into his equally damp boxers and tossed the cracked-open fake gem to the ground. “Fuck.”