Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
"Careful, there's a chair about four steps in front of you."
I stopped abruptly at the sound of Gideon's voice. So the jerk was still in the room. I felt tears prick the backs of my eyes as I realized how much amusement he must be getting from watching me wander around like a helpless infant. I tried to remember my brother Con's breathing techniques to bring my emotions under control, but all I could consider was that I was trapped in a place I had no hope of escaping without asking for help. And worse, I was now completely disoriented and had no clue in which direction the bed lay. So I was stuck standing before a complete stranger in my underwear and his shirt.
Point to Gideon. He’d played me perfectly. Not that it was too difficult since I couldn't exactly see any of the moves coming my way.
"Where are my clothes?" I snapped impatiently as my panic began to increase. I'd spent years and years working to overcome the anxiety attacks I'd had as a kid. In my professional life, my love of the business I'd been building had seen me through moments exactly like this. There had been a million things I'd been terrible at when I'd been a kid, but video games and strategy hadn't been among them. So it hadn’t mattered if it was some cocky developer or arrogant business associate I’d been dealing with; I'd instinctively known how to play the hand I’d been dealt. But in this kind of situation, I might as well have still been that little kid standing in front of whatever foster family had deigned to take me in and listening quietly while someone else made all the rules and I was given the ultimate ultimatum.
Fall in line or pay the price.
I hadn't had the physical strength or the courage that King and Con had shown every time they'd had to deal with the ins and outs of the foster care system, so I'd always fallen in line. And even when I'd followed every rule, I’d still paid the price. I'd learned then what an unfair place the world was and I'd sworn long before I’d turned eighteen that I would never let anyone put me in that kind of position again.
But here I was, letting someone do exactly that. I wanted to believe it was just because of my failing vision that I couldn't find the courage to tell Gideon to fuck off, but deep down I knew it wasn't true. I was at his mercy. He knew it and I knew it. Even if by some miracle I could get my clothes back, then what? I couldn't make out the individual fingers on my hand, so how the hell would I be able to find my way back to my cabin? Maybe I could get lucky and find a phone, but who would I call besides my brothers? It would take King or Con or Luca hours to get to me. And I didn't really believe Gideon wanted to hurt me. At most, I figured he wanted a little bit of payback for my rude treatment of him the day before.
So I made myself stand there and accept whatever he would throw my way. I went into my head and tried to bring up memories of some of the better times I’d spent with my brothers. The times where we hadn't had to fight to stay alive in a system that hadn't given two shits about us.
Despite the promise to myself that I would stand my ground, I flinched when wood scraped over wood and then the floorboards beneath my feet began to creak. I willed myself to focus on pulling in one easy breath after another, but when a dark shape began to form in front of me, something in my brain shifted and I automatically stepped back.
And kept stepping back.
"Hey, stop—" I heard Gideon say, but I was too busy scrambling backwards in search of the corner of the room. It would be the only place I could protect at least the front of my body. My back would be able to withstand the blows. I knew that because it had before…
I only managed to make it about three steps before hard fingers closed around my upper arm. "Don't," I shouted—no, begged. Even I could hear it in my voice.
The fingers on my arm gentled slightly but didn't loosen enough for me to pull free. I stood there frozen, head down.
Unable to escape.
"Lex," I heard Gideon say. His voice was much like it had been when he’d found me in my cabin. "Try to slow your breathing, okay?"
Easier said than done. I closed my eyes and thought about Con and the breathing exercises he'd have me do at night when he'd find me thrashing in my bed because of a violent nightmare. But it only served to make me miss my brother even more. I choked back a sob and tried desperately to breathe around the lump in my throat. A good minute went by before I heard a soft voice near my ear and felt a hard body pressed almost flush with mine. It was then that I remembered Gideon and the fact that I was standing half naked in a room in his house, not back in some foster home being reminded that I was only a paycheck.