Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
He sighs. “You want the truth?”
No. “Yes.”
“They noticed I was good at killing and I started to get more and more of those types of jobs. Even in a place like that, not everyone has the stomach for it.”
“So you left because you didn’t want to kill anymore?”
Blade laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “No, I left because there was no honor in the assignments they wanted to send me on. It was random, petty shit. It didn’t take me long to realize there was more money and less bullshit in freelancing.”
The matter-of-fact way he describes his choice, like it was a better career opportunity, chills my soul. If he’d told me this when we first met, I would’ve run, but this man has had his hands on me, he’s been inside me. I’ve seen that what lurks behind his eyes is dark, but it isn’t a monster.
“But you got out.”
“It’s like a fucking maze out here. Quietly,” he whispers, pulling me along behind him. “Your dad pulled me out of it. I had him as a fucking target. Someone in the mob who he’d rubbed the wrong way, but I recognized him from the Pit Vipers. It made me sloppy and he caught me. We had a fucking moment.”
“You had a moment?” I should probably be worried if this is the prettied up version.
“He kicked my ass. I was only twenty-two and already dying inside. When I came for Eagle-eye, it almost seemed fitting that he’d take me out. Full circle, you know? But he looked me in the fucking eyes and asked how my momma was doing. I didn’t even—I don’t know how the fuck he remembered that I’d been sending her money back in the day, but it fucking broke me. Two days later I was at the gate. I was on the edge, about to let go and he threw me a fucking rope.”
I have no idea how to process this. It’s so far out of my experience I don’t know where to start. Do I hate Blade for what he is, or was? Do I hate Dad? Does him pulling Blade out of it somehow make up for what they did?
“You can hate me later, but can we go now? Every fucking second we stay here is a chance for them to find us.” He waves for me to follow him out of the room.
Only now do I realize that we were in some kind of walk-in freezer that’s luckily enough not turned on. That explains the metal walls and floor, I guess. What kind of place have the Pit Vipers taken us to?
Blade was right. We’re in a maze of hallways leading into different storage rooms and a couple more freezers. Everything looks old and worn down, the paint peeling, metal rusted, and the flooring warped. The lights are on, but they’re bare bulbs hanging from strings. A slight breeze moves through, making them wobble and cast creepy shadows across the walls. It’s like we’ve stepped into a gigantic butcher shop in a horror movie.
I’m happy to let Blade lead the way, but I stay as close to him as I can. If your head could pop off from looking over your shoulders too much, mine would be rolling down the corridor already.
We come to an open space. Rusty metal sinks line the wall and rickety tables have collapsed next to them. In a corner is a pile of plastic crates, the kind you might display fruits and veggies in at a grocery store. They’re faded with black mold all over them. Gross. On the right, creepy hallways obscured with curtains of long plastic strips go off into darkness. Could they be a way out? Or just full of spiders?
There are voices, echoing strangely off the walls. Blade freezes, listening carefully while he puts his hand on my arm to make sure I’ve stopped. It’s hard to tell how far they are, but as we listen, one thing becomes obvious. They’re coming closer.
“Fuck,” hisses Blade.
“We have to hide,” I whisper. Blade’s lethal, but I don’t think even he can take out a whole club’s worth of bikers, and who knows how many there are?
“This way.” He yanks me after him so suddenly, I have to take a couple quick steps to keep from toppling. He’s pulling me into the closest of the scary, dark hallways, and it sends shivers up my spine.
The plastic strips that cover the entrance are so old, they’re brittle. We squeeze past, and I hope one of them isn’t going to just snap and crash to the floor. More moldy crates are stacked just inside.
The hallway’s made of metal all around, walls, floor and ceiling, and it’s a lot hotter than the room we just left. It stinks, like there’s still old food in here or something. Probably the mold. The air in here can’t be good for us, but better respiratory problems in the future than a bullet through the brain, I guess. I hunker down behind the crates, between Blade and the wall, and pray that the Vipers aren’t coming in here. I doubt it. I don’t think anyone’s touched these hallways in a decade.