Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
“Looking for this?”
I spun around.
Duke’s sneer looked even more sinister in the low firelight, and the burn on the side of his head looked like raw beef that had fallen off a picnic table. My guts clenched when I saw the gun in his hand. This was it, the end of the road. I only hoped I’d done enough to help my daughter escape.
Please let Willow get away...
I expected him to pull the trigger. Instead, he flipped the gun so that he was holding the barrel and pistol-whipped me so hard that I saw flashes. Pain, dizziness, and the force of the impact drove me to my knees.
“I’m going to find your daughter and drag her back here so that you can watch me fuck her in every hole she’s got before I put a fresh one in her head.”
He spat on me and then hit me again.
Everything went dark.
Chapter 7
Willow
My lungs burned as I ran through the woods. I didn’t slow down for anything as I headed in the direction of the old fire tower. I barely felt the branches scratching at my bare skin or the rocks and sticks on the ground that bruised my feet.
Adrenaline fueled me. I had to get away from those monsters at any cost.
My life depended on it.
I had a pretty good idea how to get to the fire tower from our campsite, but panic scrambled my thoughts. I paused at the edge of a meadow just long enough to use the stars to navigate. Polaris—the North Star—sat close to the horizon this time of year but I found it using Ursa Major as a reference, the way my dad had taught me.
A sob lodged in my throat at the thought of my father, but I forced it down. I couldn’t fall apart until I was safe.
I didn’t hear anyone chasing after me. I was sure that at least one of them had pursued me from the campsite. The darkness and my familiarity with the area had undoubtedly helped me evade whoever was after me. That, plus my dad’s distraction.
But those gunshots I heard… What if he hadn’t been the one to fire them?
No. I can’t think like that.
Crossing the river naked was a lot easier than crossing with a pack. I didn’t care about how much of my body ended up wet. I crouched low in the water and used my hands to pick my way across so that I wouldn’t have to worry about balancing on slick rocks in the dark.
Finally, the fire tower came into view. What had once been the clearing around the tall structure was overgrown, but I still booked it from the tree line to the stairs in case someone was watching. If this were a normal situation where my dad and I got separated, I’d wait for him at the base. But I couldn’t risk that. I needed the high ground so I could see anyone coming.
The tower had originally been used by lookouts to report wildfires in the surrounding forest. They would spend months at a time living in the tower, watching for signs of wildfires or lightning strikes in stormy weather, calling in if they saw any trouble. The base consisted of massive wooden stilts surrounding a staircase with a cabin at the top, surrounded on all sides by a platform. Dad said the tower had been closed for at least a decade; it was clear that no one was maintaining it. On my way up the stairs, I passed several signs illuminated by the bright full moon telling me that the tower was dangerous and I wasn’t allowed to be up here.
Well, it was pretty dangerous to be on the ground right now, too.
In its prime, this place had most definitely sported a railing all the way around the platform, but when I reached the top, half of it was missing, probably rotted away. I took careful steps around the cabin in case some of the platform’s beams had rotted as well, keeping close to the sides of the cabin. This high off the ground, the wind was a lot colder and more intense; it whipped my damp hair into my face and made me shiver.
While I much preferred being cold up here to being a sitting duck on the ground, I was still completely naked. When I’d checked each side of the tower three times and saw no signs of pursuit, I decided to break into the cabin to get out of the wind. The door was locked so I needed to find another way inside. Although the walls were made up entirely of windows, not all of them opened. More than a few sported promising cracks in the glass, but I didn’t want to risk cutting myself. Instead, I tested the latches on the frames that were meant to open until I found one that felt like it was barely holding on.