Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
My eyes burned, stabbed, gritty and dry, my pants spotted with red where Ash’s back made contact with me. I wasn’t sure if he was still bleeding, or if that was transfer from what had soaked into his lacerated jacket, but hoped it was the latter. Because if the bleeding hadn’t stopped or slowed down . . .
Forcing myself up despite the protests of my knee, I hooked my arms under his armpits and began to drag. Half a step at a time now. My body close to giving up. Sweat pasted my inner top to my back, dripped in runnels between my breasts, and beaded on my temples to roll down my face.
“Just a little farther,” I said, not sure if I was talking to Ash or to myself.
My shoulder slammed into the first doorway. “Fuck!”
Somehow having retained my hold on Ash, I kept on going—and tried not to think about the streaks I’d spotted on the floor while I was on my knee, my flashlight beam low.
He was bleeding. Maybe I should’ve left him where he was instead of reopening his wounds, doing more damage. Too late now.
I reached the door to the staircase.
Arms quivering, I managed to get him through and prop him up against an immobile Aaron, then second-guessed my decision. Would it be better if he was on the floor on his back? On his side in the recovery position? Aaron, too?
That was when I realized there was no room on the landing to stretch either one of them out. Fuck!
There was no choice.
Leaving Ash braced against Aaron, I then locked the door, shutting out the shades of death and loss that, as Aaron had said, festered beyond. That done, I took the double-walled bottle of coffee from Aaron’s pocket and put it in the opposite corner to the two men. “I’m going to find blankets,” I said aloud, in case Aaron could still hear me.
My task proved harder than I’d assumed.
This part of the house might have anemic yellow light in the form of those flickering sconces, but it hadn’t been opened or made up for use anytime recently. There were no mattresses, much less sheets and blankets. I’d begun to hyperventilate by the time I burst into a furnished room swathed in dustcloths.
I grabbed one of the cloths. Rough but warm. And clean on the underside. It’d do.
Pulling as many pieces off the furniture as I could handle, I dragged them upstairs to my friends, covering them as best as I could. I did three trips, until the fabric was a thick swaddling around their bodies, with only their faces peering out. I tugged Aaron’s knit cap down securely, then flipped up the hood that came with Ash’s jacket.
Streaks of red everywhere, Ash’s lifeblood dripping out of him.
“He’s still alive,” I said to myself.
For how long, Luna?
I refused to listen to the voice in my head. If I did, this was all over.
After picking up the bottle of coffee, I went downstairs to the same room and hid it underneath a huge old bed with a moldering mattress, rolling it hard so it banged to settle against the far wall.
I had to protect the only physical evidence I had.
Because I could think of only one reason why Aaron had collapsed and I hadn’t. Unless he’d had a heart attack and I was just too stupid to realize it, he’d been drugged. And the sole thing he’d consumed in the past two hours that I hadn’t was the coffee.
Grace had packed that coffee for us, but Grace wasn’t the one who’d made it.
It was Darcie who’d made the coffee. As it was Darcie who’d invited us all to this godforsaken place. What was her plan? To kill us all? Why? And even if she hated the rest of us for an unknown reason, why would she stab Ash?
The only thing that was clear was that she was dangerous . . . and she’d been alone with Grace, Kaea, and Vansi this entire time. “Please be okay, please be okay,” I chanted under my breath as I began to run once again.
A stitch formed in my side, my breath sharp and cutting.
I had no idea how I was going to get Aaron and Ash to the warmth of the living room. There were too many stairs, too long a distance. I didn’t even know if it was safe to move Ash that much . . . or who was alive to help me.
Slowing down only when I was within a short distance of the living room, I paused to catch my breath. My inhalations and exhalations were so rough and loud that I couldn’t initially hear any other sounds.
It was a thin, piercing scream that penetrated.
“Oh God,” I gasped, and slammed through the doorway.
. . . just in time to catch Bea’s falling body in my arms.