Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I shouldn’t have run. I should have bided my time and gained his trust before risking it, because there’s no way he’ll ever let me go after what I’ve done.
Hope seeps out of me, and I slide to the floor, grabbing the bars and pressing my face to them as I scan the room in vain hope that maybe there’s something he didn’t account for.
But there’s nothing. The keys hang on the farthest wall, and I don’t have anything that could help me bring them any closer. Unless I befriend the rats and get them to do my bidding, I’m fucked.
Nico is gone for a long time. Or it just feels like forever because I’m scared. I do hear some rummaging in a room farther down, but I don’t know if Nico’s sulking, punching walls, or preparing a Christmas-themed torture room to end me in style.
The last thing I should be thinking about is how he kissed me, but it’s weirdly soothing, so I don’t ban myself from it. My first kiss. With a serial killer. How appropriate for Cryptic Boy Wonder.
“Nico?” I try eventually, tortured by the wait.
“I’m coming!” he grumbles from another room.
“Your head…. d-does it hurt?” I try, because he would have murdered me if he wanted to. Maybe I can work on him until he gives me another chance at an escape?
“Yes it fucking hurts!” he yells back, and I cringe. Will I now have to soothe this sulking monster?
I hear him stomping, and then he comes back into my view with a stack of folders. He grabs the first one on top and opens it in front of my cell.
“This is your abductor. I mean… the previous one.” Nico won’t look into my eyes. “He raped and tortured his victims, often as made-to-measure blackmail he’d record for whoever paid him for it.”
He passes me the folder, sending a whole avalanche of mixed feelings through me. Fear, confused gratitude, but also morbid curiosity of someone who researched far too many crime scenes. They all buzz in my skull, locked in a continuous fight.
The first thing I see is a woman with most of her skin stripped off her back, and it doesn’t get any better. I could have been one of those poor souls with haunted eyes, and just thinking about it makes me lean harder against the bars.
“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Nico mumbles.
“How do you have all this?” I ask, and Nico sighs with exasperation, pressing a small bag of frozen peas to the side of his head.
“I found incriminating footage on one of my previous victims. I followed the trail, but most of what you see here is actually straight from the collection of snuff he kept for his own use.”
I flinch, and nausea once again crawls up my throat. “And… someone hired him to do this to me? Are you certain?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation and grabs another folder with printouts of a message exchange. “This was on his phone. When asked about what he’s allowed to do to you, the person ordering the hit responded that they don’t care, as long as at some point in the future a ‘hand or foot’ of yours surfaces so the death can be confirmed. I know I look like the bad guy here, but these are the naughty ones.” He taps the stack of folders, no doubt containing evidence on the other people he killed.
I have no words, and as scary as it is that someone paid a sadist to hunt me down, the fact that they didn’t care to even give me a quick death makes my heart too heavy, and I clutch at my chest.
“What did I do?” I whimper, meeting Nico’s gaze through the bars.
He shrugs. “I… have no idea. Do you have any enemies? People can hate others for really small things.”
I wade through my mind but have to conclude the search with a shake of my head. “No… I don’t even know that many people. There’s the staff at my family home, but it’s my brother who deals with their pay, benefits, and the like. And I don’t remember ever being mean to any of them, other than, maybe, in childhood.”
“And your brother? You said he’ll be worried about you, but at this point I’m assuming you could have lied.” Nico flicks through the folder with the messages, but I think he’s only doing that to avoid my gaze.
“My brother what?” I ask, utterly confused. It’s only when Nico looks up, offering me a dead glare when I realize what he’s suggesting. “What the hell? Normal people don’t order kills on family members! He literally raised me since our parents died and always took great care of me.” I stall, swallowing. “Maybe it’s someone who hates him and wants to hurt him through me?”