Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 779(@200wpm)___ 623(@250wpm)___ 519(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 779(@200wpm)___ 623(@250wpm)___ 519(@300wpm)
One last step, and I was outside. My pulse was in my eardrums.
Ben’s eyes narrowed to slits. His entire face twisted from fury. “Stop moving, Billie. I mean it.”
“Or what?” I lifted my chin. “You’ll do what, Ben?”
A light turned on in his gaze, and I knew what he was going to do. I read his intent as he started to go back.
“If you harm one more hair on either my mother or my father, I will take that knife and I will gut you with it.” I meant it, every fucking word. I let him see it too. I wasn’t scared anymore. I wouldn’t be intimated anymore. There would be no more threats either. I was done being anyone’s target or obsession or pawn.
I was done with it all.
He froze at my words. “Your mother?”
That’s what got him?
More sweat ran down my spine because this was it. I wouldn’t let him hurt the people I loved and that was all he was here to do. No one else was coming to our rescue. It was just me, and I had no weapons. Howard’s guns were locked away. Ben would be on me if I even took a step in their direction.
The only weapon I could see was that knife, though I’m sure he had more somewhere.
That meant it would be a fight to get the knife away from him, and remembering how he took that hit from Brett at the gas station, what Travis had said about him having real fighting experience, let alone what Ben himself said about how he grew up.
I could only focus on what I had: I had everything to lose. That’s what I had.
I tipped my head back and drew in a breath, then I had to laugh a little.
“What?” Ben frowned.
“It’s just a dichotomy. I’ve wished all my life that I still had my mom and my brother. And I also feared this very scenario, of a killer showing up and going after the people I love. The fact that my wish came true and delivered my worst fear is a real fuck you from the universe.” I had nothing else in me, no more bullshit to summon.
He was either going to die or the rest of us were.
He lowered his knife, a startlingly real sadness coming over him. “I was going to take you with me. I wanted my sister at my side again.” A new look showed, a new determination. His jaw clenched and he raised that knife back up. “That will happen, Billie. I know you’re on a suicide mission, but I won’t let that happen. I’ll take you away from here. I’ll try not to hurt yo—”
I ran at him. Enough talking.
He changed his stance, and once I got to him, he ducked my first punch, but I landed my second. As he fell back a step, I was on him again, yanking one of his feet out from him. He fell hard on the floor. I raised my foot up to stomp down on his balls, but he rolled to the side, sweeping my feet out from under me. As I fell, he was on me pinning me.
Oh, hell no.
I snarled, twisting out. Trying to.
He had my legs pinned and one of my arms, but he didn’t have the other one down because he was still holding his knife.
“Stop, Billie. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
He was ridiculously strong. Did all serial killers get an extra strong genome in their DNA? Was that why they were psychopaths?
I panted and raged, but I kept twisting.
He cursed, readjusting his hold, but in doing that, he gave me an opening. I rolled to my side, my feet free, and he cursed again, more savagely, as he rolled completely off me.
I jumped to my feet, ready to attack, but I braked.
My world flipped upside down.
He’d gone to his collateral, and he had Vicky up on her knees. He stood behind her, the knife at her throat. He was panting too, sweating too, but his eyes were a stone-cold killer’s. “Do—don’t, Billie! Don’t. I will kill her. I’ll do it now in front of you or I’ll do it later. It’s up to you, but if you go with me, peacefully, she’ll have a chance then.”
I scowled, but God—I couldn’t beat him in hand-to-hand. I wasn’t skilled enough.
I shot back, “Howard too.”
He grinned, darkly approving. “You’re a smart girl, aren’t you? What did Dad like to call you? Litt—”
The sounds of clucking started, at first quiet, timid. Then louder. They grew, and I looked behind me, to the opened door. Miss Sylvia Rivera was leading the flock. I’d left the coop door and cage open when Travis had been here earlier.
That seemed so long ago.
The ladies came looking for me, and running right to me, Miss Sylvia Rivera sped up, her clucking getting louder and louder. The rest swarmed around me, going to Howard, and then bypassing to Vicky. She was their other mother. They knew her, and apparently they decided now was breakfast time, despite it was still at night.