Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
I squeeze Shadow’s hand, drawing her dark gaze back to mine. “To have love doesn’t mean to be weak, Shadow,” I tell her. “To allow yourself to open up to another and learn to trust shows incredible strength. To have vulnerability and make mistakes . . . it makes us human, and that’s perfectly okay. Surely you can see that.”
She nods, her bottom lip beginning to quiver. “I am starting to learn that,” she tells me before shifting her gaze back to Reaper. “I don’t ever want to go back to that place.”
“You won’t,” he vows to her. “I promise you, Shadow. I don’t know how this is going to play out or what’s going to happen, but these games end the second the brothers and Gasoline are dead. I’m not sacrificing either of you, and the second we can, the three of us are getting out of here together.”
“You really mean that?” she asks, sitting up straighter.
“Yes, Shadow. You, me, and Siren; we’re a family now. I have your back, just as I expect you to have both mine and Siren’s. From here on out, we stick together.”
Shadow nods just as a burger and fries are placed down in front of her. “Okay,” she finally says, as a smile pulls at her lips. “I’ve never had a family before.”
“Neither have we,” I tell her, my heart breaking for everything this girl has been through in her short thirteen years. “It’s a learning curve for us all, but we’re going to figure it out along the way.”
“Okay,” she says again. “I just have one question.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Are families supposed to share everything? Because Reaper’s got these really cool custom blades that I’ve been dying to get my hands on, and if I’m being honest, I already stole three of them.”
Reaper scoffs. “I fucking knew some of those blades were missing.”
I can’t help but laugh as I meet Shadow’s gaze. “I’ll make you a deal,” I tell her. “If the three of us get out of Blue Springs unscathed, I’ll order you all the custom blades your little heart desires.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” she tells me with a wide grin before finally scooping up the burger that somehow seems bigger than her whole head and taking a massive bite, ultimately shutting her up for the next forty-five minutes.
26
SIREN
Rolling over in bed, I stare up at the ceiling as an uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t feel right. “What’s wrong?” Reaper murmurs beside me, locking his strong arm around me and pulling me in tighter against his body.
“Not sure,” I say, pulling out of his hold and sitting up. “Something just . . . doesn’t feel right.”
He sits up with me, watching me through a cautious stare. “Something’s really not right, huh?”
I shake my head, unable to figure it out. There’s physically nothing wrong, and there’s no reason for me to have woken up in the middle of the night, but I can’t seem to shake it. It’s been five days since the explosion at the warehouse, bringing us to day twenty-eight, and while Gasoline and the brothers haven’t been able to draw us out, they’re quickly running out of time.
I’ve been on the edge ever since.
They’ve had more than enough time to regroup following the explosion, and while Reaper and I have been dying to head out and hunt these bastards, with Shadow to worry about, we’re not willing to risk putting her in the line of danger.
We’ve been watching them like hawks, waiting for them to make a move, and from what we’ve been able to gather, they haven’t been able to locate us. Instead, they’ve attempted to draw us out, laying traps and breadcrumbs in hopes that we’ll let our guard down and come to them, but this ain’t our first rodeo, and we’re not reckless serial killers like they are. We’re hunters, and we’re ready to eat.
We’ve had their location pinned for the past four days, watching their every move, and the longer we wait, the more frustrated they become. They’re getting desperate, knowing there’s only a handful of days left in the competition, and if they don’t take us out by the end of day thirty, the sorry bastard who created this fucked up game will take us all out, which isn’t exactly a position any of us want to find ourselves in.
Don’t get me wrong, Reaper, Shadow, and I will be fine. We can handle a simple threat with ease, but the moment he realizes he can’t get to us himself, he’ll put a bounty on our heads so big that not even we can escape it.
Needing to settle this uneasiness in the pit of my stomach, I reach through the darkness and feel around for my phone, and when I don’t find it on my bedside table, I haul my ass over to the edge, making sure it didn’t fall off. “Fuck. My phone’s gone,” I say, following the cable of my charger and seeing the phone missing from the end.