Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
I crawl back against the wall, knees to my chest, watching in horror as the violence unfolds before me. The German has dropped the knife and is trying to defend himself, but whoever the American man is with the dark and narrowed eyes, clenched jaw, and general air of aggressive menace, he’s not stopping.
The German tries to counterattack, but he’s on his back on the ground under a hail of fists that turn into a grabbing grapple of some kind as the American decides to finish matters by grabbing the knife and…
I close my eyes. I can’t watch. I think I might be screaming. Am I screaming? I can’t hear myself. Everything sounds like blood and ringing in my ears.
I am picked up in very large arms and carried out of the bedroom, away from what my gut tells me is now a body.
“It’s okay,” the man who just killed someone in my bedroom says. “You’re safe, angel.”
I am frozen in place as he sets me up on the kitchen counter. Safe? I am not safe.
I feel his fingers beneath my chin. “Look at me,” he orders softly but firmly.
I open my eyes to look at him and find myself staring into a face of such perfect, handsome brutality I feel a pang in my gut, a kind of pain of yearning that comes with seeing someone so fucking far out of my league it’s like we’re not even the same classification of creature.
He’s putting pressure on the cut on my arm. “Can you lift that up? Good girl,” he praises as I raise my arm. “It’s not so bad.”
I barely even notice the wound. I am too busy staring at him. He has deep blue hair, almost black, and very handsome dark narrow eyes, like those of a hunter. The lines of his face are fine and yet masculine. He could be a back-alley mugger or a model in a fashion magazine. He’s of mixed heritage, a sort of rougher, bulkier Neo breaking into my Matrix.
He’s covered in tattoos, the exposed parts of his hands and up his neck almost to his jaw. He’s dangerous, and he’s violent, but fortunately he knows how to bandage a stab wound with great alacrity. He’s grinning as he works, almost as if he enjoys this. I watch him with a dazed and disembodied feeling, like this isn’t really happening. Like I’m still asleep.
“You’re going to be okay, angel. Lucky I got here in time…”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Cosmos,” he tells me.
“That’s not a name.”
“It’s the name my mama gave me,” he replies. Can’t argue with that. A mama’s right to name her child is absolute.
“Thank you, Cosmos,” I say. “I don’t know who that was…”
“Of course not,” he says. “You’re an innocent angel.”
There’s something about the way he uses the word “angel” that is making it sound less like a soothing term of casual affection and more like… something else.
“My name’s Elise.”
“Uh huh. I know.”
“How do you know?”
He looks me deep in my eyes. “Elise, that man came to kill you. He won’t be the only one. You need to come with me. Now.”
“Why would anybody come for me? We should go to the police.”
“The police can’t help with this,” he says. “If there is anything in this place you can’t live without, now is the time to get it. We will not be coming back here.”
“What do you mean we’re not coming back?”
“Anything of sentimental value. Anything handed down to you. Anything you’d spend the rest of your life regretting having left behind. Take it now.”
“But…”
“NOW!”
He shouts the word, startling me. I don’t know what I need. I have never had to consider what I’d take with me if I had to leave my life in a matter of minutes. And I don’t want to go back into my bedroom, because that’s where the body is, and…
I burst into tears. I don’t know what’s happening and being yelled at by a massive, murderous man is more than I can take after everything else.
“Christ,” he murmurs under his breath, taking me by the shoulders. “Okay. Look at me. Passport. Family photos. Anything belonging to a grandparent. Animal mementos. Clothes. Do you have a bag here somewhere?”
“In the closet,” I blubber.
“Okay. Is this it?” He goes to the closet and pulls out my day bag. It’s a cute pink little suitcase on wheels with an extendable handle. In his grip, it looks ludicrous.
“Yes.”
“Alright, Elise. You’ve got to work with me here. Let’s get your documents together, something to wear, come on. You can do it. Good girl.”
I respond to good girl much better than I do angel. I find myself obeying him because I don’t have enough bandwidth to do anything else. My home has been invaded. My life has been threatened, and this mysterious, violent stranger is taking control.