Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“That guy’s a creep, am I right?” She exaggerated a shiver.
I didn’t need to exaggerate mine.
For a second, I considered telling her. But what was she going to do? There wasn’t anything anyone could do.
Ellis’s words echoed in my ear: Believe in yourself, brave girl.
But how could I stop this?
Not when the Ghorl controlling that man’s mind had already decided for me.
“Yeah, seems like it.” I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, when it was everything.
We finished dinner, then returned to our room.
Jill came again, smiling and chatting like we were friends as she changed my bandage, thrilled to see it was continuing to heal.
“You two have a good night,” Jill whispered, then hesitated at the door. “I guess I won’t see either of you again, will I?”
Jenny groaned her excitement. “That’s right; I’m getting out of here!”
“I wish you the absolute best, Jenny,” Jill told her.
Then she looked at me in what I thought might be an apology. In an understanding that no one had ever watched me with before. Like she was on the verge of awareness. “And I wish you peace as you move on from here, Aria. Be careful, and take care of yourself.”
The ball in my throat made it difficult to speak. “I’ll try.”
I’ll try.
She flicked out the light.
Tonight, I didn’t close my eyes.
I didn’t snuggle down into the uncomfortable bed.
I refused the drooping of my lids, the lure of sleep whispering somewhere at the back of my mind, my soul drenched and aching for the purpose lingering on the other side.
I just waited.
The whole time, I let my spirit call out to Pax.
I whispered that I loved him. I let my spirit cover him with the hope I held for him. Basked him in the truth that the selfish side of me wished we’d met under different circumstances.
Where he wasn’t only a figment of my mind.
Because what if that’s all that this was?
What if I had slipped into insanity years ago?
Except I knew better.
I knew this was brutally real when, in the middle of the night, the door creaked open, and a sliver of light crested into the small room.
The same rubber soles squeaked on the linoleum floor, muted as he approached my bed.
It was so very real as I was covered by the foulness of his breath and the stench of his presence.
A wave of terror rushed through my body.
A torrent.
And I had little of that strength that Ellis had talked about.
But it was a speck.
A battle cry that erupted from the depths.
My only chance when they’d left me without defense.
I opened my mouth to scream.
Only a meaty palm flew out to cover it, cutting off the sound before it reached the air.
“Shh, don’t make a sound, pretty girl,” he wheezed. “There’s no need to fight it. He told me you were mine.”
The words dripped with wickedness.
And with it, a single tear slipped down my cheek.
Chapter Fifteen
Pax
Night hedged me in where I was hidden at the edge of the woods that grew up on the far side of the facility, concealed in the darkened shadows that hovered over me like phantoms.
I watched out the windshield of the car through the pattering rain that fell onto the pitted pavement. It gathered in soiled, polluted puddles, the droplets glinting as they hit in the diffuse light that shone from the industrial fixture above the single door that led into the side of the building.
The sign it illuminated read Admissions.
I’d been here for hours, watching the few people who came and went.
Cataloging.
Categorizing.
Plotting.
Well, I’d been plotting for two days. Ever since the night when Aria had confessed the power she held and Timothy had heard the thoughts the Ghorl had been feeding into the monster’s mind.
I didn’t care how many warnings Ellis had given me—there was no way I was going to sit idle and let something happen to her.
She was in danger.
I knew it.
Knew it all the way to my twisted, fucked-up soul.
My soul that recognized her across the miles and space. The connection was the only thing that had kept me from going completely mad over the years. What had kept me from becoming exactly the kind of freak my father had thought me to be.
Two mornings ago, after I’d found the Kruen and thrown myself on it, knowing it’d burn me so that I’d be awakened, I’d tossed necessities into a bag and left my shithole apartment in Las Vegas. I’d driven straight through because there wasn’t a thing that could keep me away from her.
Yeah, I knew what city she lived in. I’d gleaned the information through the years and tucked it away. Maybe it was just the comfort in having an idea of where she lived. Knowing she wasn’t that far. That her home was real.
That she was real.
Or maybe I’d known somewhere in the back of my mind that one day I would have to use that information.