Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“I’m safe when I’m by your side, Gabe.” His hand squeezed mine. A blossoming kind of heat planted itself in my chest, its roots spreading outward. This was my boyfriend now. We were official. No more games, no more pretenses about keeping things professional.
I thought back to the last time Tristan wasn’t at my side. He’d been taken that day. I nearly lost him. I never wanted that to happen again.
“If it gets to be too much, tell me, alright?”
He nodded. Fear still resided in his expression, in the way his eyebrows crinkled together and his bottom lips slightly quivered. But there was also determination there. Maybe he really did need to do this. He’d be waking up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder, saying the nightmares were so vivid… maybe being here could de-fang some of those nightmares.
It could also make them worse.
“Let’s do this,” he said, setting his sights directly ahead.
I switched the car back into drive and pulled ahead, stopping in another cloud of dust. This time, Tristan didn’t think twice about pushing open the door and stepping out, the dust still settling.
“Hold on,” I said, my hand going down to the concealed pistol I had brought with me. I wasn’t leaving anything to chance today. “Let me go first.”
“After you,” Tristan said with a flourished bow. He wore that easy smile of his again. It made me like him even more, seeing how courageous and positive he could be in the face of such darkness. We were steps away from a place that could have easily been Tristan’s gravesite, and yet he was smiling at me, his honey-warm brown eyes glittering even with the thick cloud that sat directly above us.
I took him in for a brief moment. He would be my pillar of strength. I always liked to think about pillars that held me up; it was how I got through the brutal years as a Marine. I thought about my best friend, I thought about my mom, I thought about myself. All three pillars kept me standing when bullets were flying and blood spraying.
Today, my pillar would be Tristan. Today and tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.
Taking the lead, I stepped in front of Tristan. The place had already been searched by the cops, but all they found for evidence were a few incomplete fingerprints, a mixture of toxic chemicals, and some strands of hair that didn’t pull up any matches in the database.
Basically, they found nothing. Which didn’t necessarily mean there was nothing inside.
The door, unlocked, opened on creaking hinges, slanting so that it scraped against the already scratched wooden floor. Like dented scars never meant to heal, never meant to scab over. The smell of wet and musty air hit me first. I went to turn on the lights, but nothing came on, so instead, I went for the drapes, opening each one. “Stick close to me,” I said, going toward the first closed door. “I’m going to clear this place.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” Tristan teased behind me. I smirked before throwing open the door, revealing a dirty (and empty) bedroom. There was a mattress with no bed frame sitting on the floor, the bedsheets having been torn off and processed into evidence already. Fingerprint dust still clung to the dingy bedside table. A tiny window was boarded up with thin planks of wood, making this room darker than the living room.
I went to the next door and the next. Each room was empty, our footsteps seeming to echo as if we had entered into a cavernous expanse. The house was quiet.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Tristan as we reached the entrance to the basement.
“A little light-headed. But fine.”
I looked into his eyes, trying to spot any kind of sign to turn around.
It was all I saw. Everything screamed at me to push him right back through the front door and get him in the car, far from this literal hellhole we were about to climb down into.
But I had to trust him. Wasn’t that what created the foundation for a solid relationship?
The door to the basement opened with a loud yawn, the wood hitting the floor with a clatter. I went down first, Tristan’s hand falling between my shoulders as he followed. I didn’t want to pull out my gun and worry Tristan any more than he already was, but my hand did hover over it, ready for anything.
The basement itself had been mostly emptied. There was nothing, or no one, to be ready for. The aquariums were gone, the tables that held them still there, covered in a dark black tablecloth. The restraints that had tied Tristan down were also gone, along with the tray of chemicals and used syringes next to it. It smelled clean, too. Like Pine-Sol, as if the police had cleaned the place up after they left.