Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Buzz. Buzz.
I looked down when the watch on my wrist vibrated with an incoming message, and grimaced.
He would be so mad at me that I didn’t wait, but there was nothing I could do.
Either I pumped my own gas, or I walked home.
I knew where I was—about ten minutes from the hospital.
In fact, I was so close to the doctor’s parking area that I could just make out the hood of a familiar orange Jeep that belonged to a doctor in Oncology. It was ostentatious at best and stuck out like a sore thumb.
Quaid:
You better not be out of that car.
I felt my lips twitch.
I was just about to answer him on my watch when I felt the presence beside me.
I looked up, heart in my throat, only to deflate at the sight of Dr. Brewn.
“Dr. Brewn!” I chirped. “How are you?”
I hadn’t seen him in weeks thanks to the transfer to the new department. His eyes took me in, trailing from my head to my toes.
He smiled, but there was something wrong about it, almost as if he was trying to force it.
“I’ve been better, to be honest,” he admitted. “Do you think you could give me a ride to the hospital? I just got dropped off by the shuttle, but the shuttle broke down on Fourteenth Street, according to the hospital director. I’d walk to the bus stop, but the knee is acting up more today.”
He patted his knee, and I instantly felt bad for the poor guy.
“I’ll give you a ride, sure,” I said before I could think too hard. “I just have to finish this up. And don’t be surprised if Quaid shows up all pissy. He was supposed to do this for me so I wasn’t out here alone, but he got caught up on a call.” i.e., his brother was fighting for his life, and we were all terrified.
“No babysitter at all?” he frowned, looking worried.
“Nope.” I shrugged just as a woman in a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up next to me and got out. “I’m free! No shadows today!”
She worked at the hospital, too, based on the pink scrubs.
The moment I said it, I felt a sense of foreboding slam into me.
I tried to backpedal, but even the woman on the pump next to me wasn’t convinced.
“Well, kind of,” I lied. “They’re on their way. I’m sure only a few minutes at most.”
The woman at the pump across from me snorted, giving me a wide-eyed stare.
Quaid might very well kill me.
I got into the driver’s side of my car, started it up, and had just pulled out when it happened.
The foreboding turned into a true knowledge that I’d fucked up.
I’d done the wrong thing.
I’d…
“Do you want to go on a hike with me?”
A hike?
“Your kn-knee?” I stuttered, tongue thick.
He smiled.
Dr. Brewn forced me deeper and deeper into the woods.
But I knew, if I didn’t put up some kind of a fight, he’d get me too far away to be found.
And I would be found.
Quaid wouldn’t give up.
The thorn in my left Croc pushed deeper, and I groaned. “I have to stop. There’s a thorn in my shoe.”
He looked at my shoes, lip curled. “Those aren’t great hiking shoes.”
They weren’t.
Because I hadn’t planned on fucking hiking, dammit!
“Let me see,” he said.
I reluctantly picked my foot up for him to see, and he caught my leg, jerking it toward him so hard that I soon found myself flat on my back.
His eyes gleamed as he took the shoe from me and tossed it into the woods. “Here’s good enough, I guess.”
The next moments of my life were the longest, and most painful, I’d ever experienced.
I’d never, not in a million years, be able to say what, exactly, had happened.
Hits. Punches. Kicks. Slices.
Over and over, it continued until I was so far gone I couldn’t think about anything but the pain.
“Brewn,” I heard called out. “I know you’re having fun, but it’s my turn.”
Two.
There were two of them.
“Fuck off, Darron.”
Darron.
Dr. Darron Simpson? The one I’d just gone on a date with and couldn’t change a tire, Darron?
What the absolute hell was going on?
A kick to my head had me seeing stars, and that thought was the last thing I remembered.
I mainly eat whole foods. Whole blocks of cheese. Whole pizzas. Whole cakes. Whole tubs of ice cream.
—Text from Ellodie to Quaid
QUAID
“He’s okay,” I said to my dad. “Got pinned down under gang-on-gang fire. He took a bullet to the hip. One to the chest. Refused to ride in the ambulance and drove himself to the hospital. The ambulance took three more gang members from the Breakers Gang.”
“Good.” Dad sounded relieved. “Where are you going now?”
“Heading to the gas station around the corner,” I answered. “Assman was rear-ended by a semi-truck. His patrol car is fucked, but he’s okay, according to him.”