Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
“You’ve been fucking a man up the way for weeks now,” he rasps. “What, you think we didn’t know? Of course we know. There’s a homeless dude up there and you spread your legs for him like a slut. What a fucking ho,” he said with disgust. “Dad, I got her!” he calls. “Do your thing!”
That’s when Jimbo poked his head from around the doorframe, grizzled and missing a couple teeth.
“You got her bound?”
“Hell yeah,” my brother said, yanking the zip ties around my wrists so that they sliced into my flesh. “Gagged too.”
Then, he slipped a raggedy piece of cloth around my head before cramming the dirty fabric down my throat.
“Mmmph!” I cried out in protest. “Mmmph, mmmph!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Robbie grunted before kicking me in the back of my legs. Immediately, I fell to my knees before toppling over onto my face. My head hit something on the way down and I blacked out, but not before desperately hoping for Braden to come save me. I’ll be safe in the alpha male’s arms ... once he realizes I’ve been taken.
I’m not sure how much time has passed, but now I’m in a dank, dirty room somewhere. It’s airless, with a single lightbulb fizzling overhead. The walls are papered with old newspapers, yellow and water stained, and there’s a pipe running vertically in the corner. When I touch it, my fingers shoot back because it’s hot! Yet, I can hardly keep from not touching it because the room isn’t much more than a cell. It’s maybe eight by eight feet, and I pound on the tiny door with both my fists, screaming my head off.
“Hey, let me out of here!” I shriek. “You can’t keep me here!”
There’s no sound. Absolutely none, and I realize that the room is likely insulated. A bit of pink padding pokes out from between the cracks in the walls because the room is so dilapidated, and of course, there are no windows. I’m in an airless, tight little space, and even worse, no one knows I’m here. I’ve been kidnapped by my own father and brother, yet I don’t understand why. Weren’t we getting along fine? Sure, I hadn’t talked to them in a while, but reception on the mountain is spotty in the best of times. Did something happen? Did I do something wrong?
At that moment, the door swings open to reveal my older brother. To be honest, Robbie looks worse for the wear with his greasy hair and wasted form. There’s a stench coming off him and my nose wrinkles.
“Oh my god,” I wince while waving my hand before my face. “What the hell? Have you been smoking?”
Robbie hawks and spits at my feet, the loogie hitting the toe of my sneakers.
“No, bitch,” he snarls in an evil tone. “But we set fire to the crops. We had to burn that shit.”
“What?” I gasp. “Why?”
“Because they’re coming, what else?” he asks. “They’re onto us.”
My forehead crinkles with confusion.
“What do you mean, they’re onto us? We have all the licenses we need. I saw all the paperwork myself. It’s not like we’re an illegal dispensary or committing crimes.”
Robbie shrugs before hawking again.
“We’re legit but it’s more than that, Grace. This shit is complicated and fucking messed up. The government is a complete travesty.”
I hold up my hands.
“Of course, I agree. Our government is messed up beyond belief, and there’s no telling where this new administration is going to go. But why burn our crop? You know those plants are my babies! And the greenhouse too. Did you burn that?”
He smirks.
“Yeah, and your cabin too.”
I stare at my brother as the blood drains from my cheeks.
“My cabin? But why? There are no plants inside. And that’s where I kept my stuff. It’s where I kept Mom’s old things. You know, the gold necklace that she used to wear. She left that for you and me,” I cry out, my voice breaking as tears sting my eyes.
But my brother isn’t moved. He shrugs his bony shoulders, the flesh wiry beneath his wife-beater.
“Helen was a slut, and unfortunately, the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. You’ve been hooking up with a homeless dude, and—”
“He’s not homeless!” I say in a fierce voice. “He’s a lumberjack between gigs, and he inherited that place from his grandparents!”
Robbie pauses for a moment, and then throws his head back before braying with laughter.
“You really believe that?”
I stare at him.
“Yes! Braden is a lumberjack! I’ve seen him chopping wood with my own eyes, and he knows what he’s doing. He’s skilled with an axe.”
This time, my brother’s head falls so far back from laughing that it’s almost perpendicular to his shoulders.
“You really think that fucker is a lumberjack just because he knows how to use an axe? How fucking dumb are you? I could get an axe out right now and twirl it around. Would that make me into a lumberjack? Or maybe I’d look like a drum major. Or if I jump up and down and do some air kicks, would that make me into a cheerleader?”