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 it would come to this.
I think I’d probably known it since the first time she was hospitalized, the day after she’d turned sixteen. She’d come crying and trembling into Tearsith that night, terrified that she’d been locked away.
She’d always been too trusting of her family, but I got that it was just her heart. She loved fully and without restraint, when in reality, she should have been skeptical of any asshole who came into her space.
Maybe I was just jaded. But I’d learned the hard way that people couldn’t be trusted. Hell, I saw the proof of it in their thoughts every fucking night.
Rage held me as I sat in the car and waited for the right opportunity to make my move.
The double doors at the front of the facility had long since been locked for the night, and the only way in was the Admissions door a hundred yards in front of me.
I knew firsthand. I had slunk around the perimeter, masked by the gloom, checking windows and doors and looking for an access point, while my spirit screamed in awareness.
Howled with the knowledge that Aria was inside.
I could feel her in a way that Nols weren’t supposed to be able to.
As if we shared a greater connection than any Laven before us.
I could sense her like hot, fiery tendrils that twisted through the night and wrapped me in shackles.
I wasn’t exactly prone to following laws and common decency. Not when it came to the monsters who roamed this Earth and were every bit as sick and twisted as the demons we fought while asleep.
But this?
Anxiety rattled through my being.
This was an entirely different story. I was about to commit the type of crime I’d never embarked upon.
My soul thrashed in determination, leaving no question that she was worth it.
My eyes scanned the drenched lot. Freezing-cold air rose in vapors from the vents that were cut at the base of the brick walls, sending plumes of white curling into the dense, deep night.
I froze when the door opened for the first time in more than two hours. A young girl and someone who was likely her mother stepped out. The older woman popped open an umbrella and held it up to shield them as they darted to a car parked in one of the spots that ran alongside the building.
After a moment, they backed out and drove away, red taillights disappearing down the road.
The rest of the lot was dotted with random cars. I gauged that most belonged to employees, their number fewer at this time of night.
Which was why I had to strike now.
When the hour was long and the atmosphere was held in a silence that whispered of wickedness and ill-kept dreams.
A feigned solace that would not last.
Inhaling a fortifying breath, I cracked open the car door and climbed out. My leather jacket wasn’t enough to stop the frigid air from sinking into my bones.
Chills rolled down my spine in a frisson of disquiet, and I crept up to a large dumpster ten feet in front of the car, checking that my gun was loaded before I peered around the metal to the entrance.
I swallowed the knot in my throat before I strode that way as if I had a different purpose than the one that pounded in my chest.
My boots thundered across the pavement, splashing through the puddles, blood careening through my veins, haphazard and wild as I hauled open the Admissions door and stepped into the blinding light of the waiting room.
Awareness impaled me.
Sharp and distinct.
She was here.
Trying to regain my bearings, I blinked, scanning the small lobby. There were three chairs on each short wall to the left and right of me, and straight ahead was a large sliding-glass reception window with a counter below it.
Metal doors flanked it on both sides.
Determination skittered across my skin, and I lifted my chin and strode across the confined space. I planted my hands on the elevated counter and peered through the closed window. To the right was a row of what looked like intake rooms. A woman was in the first one with her back to me, pulling something from a file.
Feeling the weight of my presence, she called, “Give me one moment, and I’ll be right with you. You can go ahead and fill out the information on the iPad to your right—that will get you started.”
Teeth grating through my frenzied nerves, I turned to the iPad and began to fill out the information requested. I prayed this would earn me access to the back. Prayed it didn’t come to violence. Prayed I’d have her out of here without much incident before anyone realized she was gone.
I didn’t hold on to much hope of that, though.
Not with the way grimness shivered in the air.
Ominous.
Evil cloaking the atmosphere in greed.