Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
I smile through the tears as he comes close and pecks me on the cheeks. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep, though.”
“They drugged me.”
He looks at me with half-mast eyes. “Is it getting stronger or wearing off?”
“Wearing off, I think,” I mutter.
He nods before ramming his nunchucks into the clasps. With a few more hits, my wrists are released, and Kai and Milo focus on my ankles next while I rub my painful wrists.
My body leans forward the second I’m freed, my feet still wobbly from the drugs, but Kai catches me before I fall.
“Whoa. I’ve got you,” he murmurs, clutching me tightly.
I can feel myself growing weak in his arms, lulled by the safety he offers me.
“Can you walk?” he asks.
I nod softly. “If I focus.”
But I’m still stuck in this hellhole, and a million of those Bonesmen are swarming this compound.
BANG!
A gunshot makes me look up at the door.
I grasp Kai’s arm in shock. “Wait. Crystal. We have to find her.”
“What? Who?” Milo asks.
“My friend, she was taken and brought here with me.” My fingers dig into Kai’s skin. “It’s my fault. They’ll sell her. We have to save her.”
Kai puts his arm underneath my shoulder to support me. “We’ll try our best, but you’re my main priority. We have to get you to safety.”
“I can’t leave here without her,” I reply starkly.
“If we must, we must,” he grits back as he drags me to the door. “C’mon. We’ll look for her on our way back.”
A guard runs down the steps, but Milo throws his nunchucks at him before he can even reach us.
“Thanks,” Kai says.
“I’ve got your back.” Milo winks, grasping his nunchucks before beating the life out of the guard.
“Check the doors,” I say, pointing at the other ones. “I heard a scream coming from one of them.”
Milo hits the locks with his nunchucks, and they fall apart with ease, but each time he opens the doors, the cell behind it is empty.
“Shit,” I mutter, pushing myself off Kai’s shoulder so I can wobble to the cells and have a look myself. “Where is she?”
BANG! BANG!
“We don’t have time for this,” Kai says.
More screams from upstairs catch my attention, and I jerk free from Kai’s grip and bolt toward it.
“Lana! Be careful!” Kai yells as he runs after me, but I’m fixated on the noise.
Upstairs, I pause and stare at the scene in front of me. Bodies litter the hallways, blood and remains splattered across the floors everywhere I look. When I take another step, I spot the guards coming from the main hall to our left, guns at the ready.
Just before he pulls the trigger, Kai drags me back behind a wall.
BANG!
“Get down!” Kai barks, shielding me from the gunfire with his own body.
Milo jumps out only to shoot right back at them.
“Lana. Focus. We need to get out of here.”
“But we haven’t checked all the doors,” I say.
“There’s no time. We’ve already been through most of those cells. Most were empty.”
“But she has to be here!” My voice sounds as desperate as my heart feels.
Kai grips my shoulders and shakes me a little. “Look at me! I’m not losing you after just getting you back. Do you hear me?”
I’m shocked and overwhelmed at the same time because my body is still trying to fight the drugs while my brain is overloaded with fear.
Fear for losing someone dear to me, who’s stuck here because of me.
BANG!
The last gunshot ricochets through the corridor before a gun is thrown across the hall. I hear fighting and lean around the corner to watch Milo kick the guy’s ass, pummeling him to the floor with ease before smashing his face in with a chair.
Milo’s face is covered in blood as he turns to look at us. “Go!”
Kai grabs my hand, lacing his fingers through mine as we run through the hallway with Milo on our tail to cover us.
I stop in front of another door and pull at the lock, but it won’t budge.
Grunting, Kai yells, “Move.”
And he slams the lock open with an empty gun snatched off the floor.
I open the door, but no one is inside.
More tears well up in my eyes.
We’re too late.
“We have to go. Now.” Kai leans around the corner to watch more Bonesmen pour in.
“What about Crystal?” I ask.
“No more time,” Milo says as he pushes us forward.
We run down the hallway, but then I bump into someone and lose my balance, falling ass first onto the floor.
BANG!
Someone right in front of me holds up a smoking gun, the frame and blond hair familiar, and when he turns his head to look at me, I almost want to burst into tears again.
I lean up on my elbows. “Nathan?”
He came here too?
He turns around and goes to his knees in front of me, wrapping his arms around me.