Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 199879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 999(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 999(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Opening my heavy eyes, I see blurry figures right in front of my face. Lines run down the length of my body, and I realize I’m lying on my back. I fist my hands, trying to get feeling into them. They’re cold and numb. Lifting my head, I hit it on something and curse myself.
Fuck, Saint! Now the front hurts as much as the back. I lie still and close my eyes, taking in a few deep breaths to let myself adjust to wherever the fuck I am before I hurt myself.
Once I can move my fingers, I realize my arms are down by my sides, and I’m still dressed because I feel the roughness of my jeans on the palms of my hands. I go to touch my face, but my arms don’t make it far because they come to a stop when my elbows hit something hard.
Opening my eyes, they adjust to see the blurry lines I saw initially are metal bars. My breathing picks up when I realize exactly where I am—the pits.
The best way to describe them is that they resemble shallow graves in the center of the concrete floor. I’ve watched my father place men in here and then they lock them in with bars across the top. There’s not much room for movement, let alone escape.
I turn my head from side to side to see both concrete sides only inches from my face. The tight space smashes my shoulders and arms down to my sides. My pulse races, and I move my hands to rest on my belt and try to move them up my stomach and chest to see how far I can go. But they can’t go any higher than my belt because when I go to bend my elbows, the concrete sides stop them.
I try to calm my erratic breathing. “Don’t panic,” I tell myself. They don’t want to kill me. That won’t benefit them.
I feel around the best I can down by my sides, trying to see if there is a key anywhere underneath or beside me. But I’ve seen how the pits work. The key goes in from the top where the feet go. There’s no way I’d be able to reach that. I have no clue what the point to this is. Am I supposed to free myself? Or is it to see how long I can last in a concrete box?
A ticking sound gets my attention, and I look around the ceiling the best I can through the five bars. Lifting my head, I allow my forehead to press against the bar in the center and see a timer hanging on the wall outside the pit. It’s large in size and has big red numbers. It’s counting down from what I’m guessing is five minutes because it’s currently at four and a half and dropping.
“What the fuck happens once it stops?” I ask myself. I’ve never seen that before with previous men put in here. They have to serve time, but it’s way more than five minutes.
“It comes in waves.” A voice speaks.
I tilt my head back, trying to look around, but can’t see shit. “What does?” I ask, thinking that maybe it was one of my brothers—Kashton, Adam, or Haidyn—but I didn’t recognize the voice.
“The timer,” he answers, and I can tell by the softness in his voice that he’s weak. There are three pits in the floor here so he could be in one next to me. “The first wave is tolerable…the second gets colder…” He pauses before whispering, “The third is the coldest.”
The blood rushes in my ears and I try to bend my knees and get frustrated when they hit the bars. Lifting my head as far as I can, I see I’m down to two minutes and fifty seconds. “After the third?” I rush out.
He coughs, and it sounds like he’s been smoking all his life, but it’s probably just the shit Carnage has put him through. “I’ve never seen anyone make it past that.” He gets out before coughing again.
My fear rises, and I try to shake it off. No. I won’t fucking die in here. There has to be a reason as to why this is my initiation. Instead, I lift my head, letting the bars push against my pounding head, and watch the timer count down the last twenty seconds. When it gets to zero, an alarm sounds, and I feel a rush of cold air down by my legs before water begins to fill the hole.
FUCK!
My fear is drowning to death. This is why this is my initiation. My father knows this. He found my mom once trying to drown me in the bathtub. She hated my father, and I fell into that category by association.
I take in a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm my nerves as the water fills the confined space, soaking into my clothes, making my limbs feel heavier than they did already.