Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 759(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Struggling to breathe, I sluggishly piece together flashes of memory.
The needle. The duffle bag. Rhett.
Panic flares, sharp and consuming, and I realize I can’t flail. I can’t move my limbs at all. My heart thunders, booming so hard it pressurizes in my ears. I try to scream, but my throat remains silent, my lips unmoving. I can’t even gasp for air.
Complete muscle paralysis.
Don’t freak out, Frankie. Don’t let the fear take over. Stay calm. Find a way out.
I feel every sensation in my body, and that acute awareness dominates my thoughts. I focus on my heart rate, commanding it to slow. Sweat trickles down my forehead, pooling in the hollows of my eyes.
My eyelids respond, opening and closing. I encourage them, trying to regain my eyesight.
Slowly, the haze over my vision recedes, revealing a dimly lit room, the air cool and musty.
Familiar.
Horrifyingly familiar.
As my eyes adjust, recognition hits me like a white-out blizzard.
No, no, nononono!
Two-story windows, glossy wood floors, stone fireplace, curving staircase to a catwalk…
The cabin.
I’m back in Hoss.
My worst nightmare realized.
Panic spikes anew, my pulse vaulting into a war cry of terror. The cabin closes in on me, walls pressing nearer, air growing thinner.
A soft, rhythmic whirring sound buzzes from somewhere nearby. What is that?
I concentrate on the ceiling, counting the beams, desperately trying to anchor myself. But the sense of suffocation only grows. My breaths are too shallow, too rapid, each one fighting against the invisible weight on my chest.
Only my eyes move. I dart them side to side, frantic, searching for escape, for someone to assure me I’m not alone.
Lying on the couch in a sitting room full of memories, I’m swaddled in a blanket, the soft material tickling my skin. My bare skin.
Head to toe, I’m completely naked.
Where are my clothes?
Where’s Rhett?
An IV line snakes in my peripheral vision, connected to my arm. The other end attaches to a fluid bag and small portable pump.
That explains the whirring sound.
I’m drugged.
Trapped.
A prisoner in my body.
In this cabin.
This hellish place.
Every crack in the wall, every shadow cast by the window light, brings back the fear, the endless night, the cold, the hunger, the abuse, the hopelessness. All of it lives in my bones.
Yet everything looks different.
During our final months here, we tore apart every wooden structure to fuel the hearth.
There’s no trace of our struggle for survival. The destruction is gone, the wreckage swept away. New furniture fills the space. Repaired flooring. The cabin looks reborn, untouched by its haunted past.
The transformation is jarring, making my skin prickle and crawl.
Rhett has been traveling nonstop for the past five months.
Mostly to major cities. I’ve been working closely with top hospitals in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York.
I know Wilson investigated this. Rhett’s flight plans checked out. But were all his flights confirmed? He must’ve been taking trips here, too.
How did he find Hoss? Leo and Kody searched and searched and couldn’t locate it.
They don’t know where I am.
They’ll never find me.
I try to move again, but my limbs lay like dead things. I look down and study the IV drip in my arm.
My mind races. Whatever he’s giving me only affects skeletal muscles. I feel every twitch, pulse, and breath in my body.
I can feel pain.
And wetness.
Wetness between my legs.
Did my bladder empty? Or is it something else?
Don’t go there, Frankie. Don’t think about it.
I’m wide awake. Fully aware. My brain is working, and I need to use it.
Rhett is my stalker.
He sent creepy messages and dismembered body parts to me.
Is he a serial killer? Or does he paralyze his victims the way he’s paralyzing me? Does he keep them alive, trapped in their bodies, while he tortures them?
Is that what he intends to do to me?
Silent tears slip down my temples.
He has Wolf’s body.
Tightness compresses my chest, my breath ramping into shallow puffs of air.
Sound comes from the arctic entryway. Doors open and close. Then Rhett appears, his expression unfamiliar, his eyes cold. Dead. I hardly recognize him.
“You’re awake.” He strides over in jeans and a thermal shirt, his hair windblown. Far removed from the heart surgeon I’ve known since my residency in Anchorage.
My only friend.
I glare at him with all the venom I can pour into my burning eyes.
You kidnapped me.
You’re sick.
Let me go.
Please, don’t do this.
The phone in his hand isn’t a typical smartphone. The fat antenna and bulky size suggest it’s a satellite phone.
It holds his attention as he approaches. When he reaches the couch, he shifts his gaze to me, a sad smile on his lips.
“Don’t look at me like that, sweetheart.” He sits on the couch beside my hip. “I’ve waited years for this. There’s so much I need to tell you. So much you don’t understand. But right now, all you need to know is that I love you. I’ve loved you since the day I met you in Anchorage.” He glances at the phone again, watching something on the screen. “I saw you first, you know. Before any of the Strakh men knew you existed, you were mine.”