Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
A man alights from the white Porsche and I sink back into the shadows, staying very still, but my sixth sense is beginning to throb. He’s looking around the parking lot, as if to verify no one else is around. I don’t like the way he slides his hands into his pockets and whistles his way toward the side door. It’s nine thirty at night. Presumably, there’s no good reason for anyone to be here, except for Meg. If he’d merely forgotten something at the office, he’d be moving with more urgency.
As soon as he unlocks the side door and slips inside, I’m cutting through the darkness. Keeping to the shadows of the parking lot, I approach the building without a sound, all while removing my black leather gloves from my back pocket and putting them on. I silence my phone and enter through the same door, staying on the balls of my feet, my back to the wall.
What I see turns my blood into fire straight out of hell.
Meg is bent forward on her hands and knees, her shorts showing off her bare thighs and a significant part of her ass cheeks. The man is standing right behind her and she has no idea, because she’s singing along with her music, scrubbing a scuffed baseboard that runs along the base of the hallway wall. When I hear the metallic slide of his zipper coming down, I don’t wait another second.
I appear behind the dead man like a phantom, take his head in my hands and snap his neck like a fucking twig, catching his body as it drops, dragging it out of sight before he ever hits the floor. Looking down at his everlasting expression of shock, I lift shaking fists and bellow without sounds, the scathing need to batter him bloody so fierce, I nearly give in. That would leave a mess, unfortunately. And it would lead to me explaining to Meg that I’m a monster.
“Hello?”
My muscles seize at the sound of Meg’s nervous voice.
“Is someone there?”
I quietly lock the door of the break room where I’ve apparently ended up with the pervert who chose the wrong fucking girl, and I hold my breath when the knob rattles.
“Oh shoot,” she mutters. “No granola bar tonight, I guess.”
My narrowed gaze zips to the basket of snacks sitting by a coffee maker. She wanted one of those granola bars? She’s hungry?
My own stomach draws in on itself as if experiencing hunger pains.
Setting aside the agony caused by that realization, I jolt into action once Meg is no longer outside of the break room, hiding the body in a place that won’t be immediately obvious until I return and either dispose of him and his vehicle. Or make his death look like an accident. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I should have time.
Satisfied that I’ve left no trace of myself behind, I exit quietly through the break room window and return to my SUV. As soon as my hands stop shaking from anger, I pick up the violin again, staring at the instrument like it’s a foreign object.
“Happy song,” I mutter. “Write a happy song.”
It’s another twenty minutes before Meg emerges from the office building. She stops short upon seeing the white car in the parking lot, turning back to peer into the premises before tightening her hold on the caddy holding her cleaning products and hustling away.
Good girl.
You never saw a thing.
From my position across the street, I have a vantage point of the bus stop and I wait, watching with a heavy chest as she yawns and nearly falls asleep, seemingly undisturbed by the danger than can befall a young woman out this late alone. Thank God she ended up on my beach. Thank God I was chosen to save her from drowning.
Thank God, Thank God, Thank God.
I’ll keep you safe, Meg. I’ll guard you with my life.
When the bus appears to pick her up, I follow at an undetectable distance, my eagerness to see where she lives multiplying by the second. I never asked if she had a boyfriend, but if she does, she won’t for much longer. And anyway, based on her innocent reactions when I touch—or lick—her, she’s never known a man.
By morning, that will no longer be the case.
Ahead of me, Meg jumps off the bus after only one stop and starts sprinting.
“What the fuck?” I roar, hitting the gas and swerving around the stationary bus, watching in shock as she tears across a field at full speed, ponytail whipping behind her in the wind, her cleaning supplies apparently still on the bus. I don’t even hesitate, I turn into the field, busting through a wooden fence and gunning the SUV to her left around front of her, skidding into her path and slamming on the brakes. I’m diving out of my vehicle in a split second and she’s already starting off in another direction, leaving me no choice but to run after her. “Meg,” I shout. “Stop. I would never hurt you.”