Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
The exit is so close I can almost taste the fresh air awaiting me outside, but as I reach for the handle, something yanks me back, and I fall over, banging my knees against the floor as plush gingerbread men rain over me, followed by a cardboard box.
I try to get up, but my robe catches on the shelf, and when I pull, the unit tips forward. I scream when it falls, and I cover my head to protect it from more plushies, which are now like quicksand around me.
My only saving grace is that the top of the shelf had gotten stuck against the opposite wall, so it can’t crush me. I wade through the toys, shrugging the robe off to leave it behind. This might be what getting a heart attack feels like. I’m dizzy from stress, my heart is pounding like mad, and I know Nico—no, the Christmas Killer is somewhere behind me. Just because he was nice to me to get into my pants doesn’t make him any less of a monster.
He saws off people’s heads and takes their teeth, for fuck’s sake!
I’m about to get up when a hand wraps around my ankle and yanks me back with so much strength I shiver in terror.
“No, please!” I shriek and kick back with my free foot. The pulsating glow of the Christmas lights seeps through the shelves above me, transforming the trap I’ve found myself in into a hallway straight from a horror movie, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go down without a fight.
“You will wait down there as long as I say!” Nico grunts and drags me from under the shelf despite my kicking. He’s no longer the nice guy he tried to present himself as.
I grab the edge of the shelf to keep him from pulling me back, since it seems my weight is nothing for him. When one of my hands slips, I grab the plushies and start throwing them at him with helpless fury. “Let go! I just want to go home!”
But it’s all for nothing. With a forceful tug, he drags me over the floor until I’m under him, terrified and defenseless. I try to kick, to push my thumbs into his eyes, but he rolls me to my stomach as if I weigh nothing, which, I suppose, I do when compared to his muscular form.
It’s only then that I give up on the fight and sob, wondering whether he’ll grab my hair and slam my head against the floor until my skull cracks, or if he’ll rape me beforehand.
I hear a click, and metal cuffs pull my wrists together.
He picks me up, not even bothering to gag me, which tells me screaming would be useless.
He wants to keep me, and I don’t know if an eternity in his Christmas lair isn’t worse than death.
Chapter 7
Blake
I fall onto the cot as Nico shoves me inside the cell uncuffed. Despite bruises I can already feel forming on my body, I’m still breathing. But for how long?
My breath hisses as I stand back up and throw myself at the iron doors that just locked behind me. “How can you do this to me? I did nothing wrong. I just wanted to have fun, and now you imprisoned me here, like I’m a circus animal!”
“If you’d have made yourself known before I took off the mask, we wouldn’t have this problem!” He rubs his head with a scowl.
Good. At least I hurt him. Too bad my self-defense classes turned out to be useless in the moment of absolute panic.
“Oh, sure, it’s all my fault. It has nothing to do with you liking me,” I rasp, tapping my chest to drive that point home. “You’re no hero. I bet you’re just lying to me about that other guy being hired to kill me, so that I’m too scared to leave!”
Nico screams with so much fury I take a few steps back from the bars, afraid of what he’ll do next. He doesn’t reach in for me though and instead turns to an old chair in the corner and kicks it so hard the leg breaks.
“Any other fucking complaints?” He turns to me with madness in his eyes.
I’m aware that I’m poking a rabid bull, but I’m too angry, and the bars give me a false sense of security.
“Yes, that sweater you gave me? The ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, and that counts for something!” I roar, staring straight into his fiery eyes.
They dim, and for the longest time, he’s just breathing hard, his nostrils flaring, but his shoulders sag. He kicks the fallen chair without the same energy as before. Seems like I hit a nerve there.
I don’t get a curse-filled answer. Nico walks off, and even though I want him gone, now my stomach clenches in fear. He could leave me here and I’d starve to death. He could torture me by giving me spoiled food, or blocking my access to a shower. He could do anything, and I’m neither strong enough, nor good enough at fighting, to stop him.