Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
We have to move.
I push up and grab Scarlett. Her frantic eyes lock on mine. “We have to run.”
Security is already running onto the stage, going straight for Scarlett. I step away and they take hold of her, dragging her off the stage. For a moment, I’m standing there, unsure where to go. The side they took Scarlett off, is congested with people. I’m standing on the stage, open and a target. So, I turn and run in the opposite direction. I need to get off this stage. That’s all I know.
I rush down the stairs and go around the back of the stage, heading toward Scarlett’s dressing room, where I’m sure they’ll take her.
Someone grabs me from behind.
At first, I thought it might be Malakai, but when a cool gun is pressed to my temple, I know it isn’t.
My heart feels like it stops beating. I’m dragged into the darkness of the stage, down behind two of the massive beams holding it up, and my voice is ripped from my throat as fear clutches at me. A huge hand goes up and around my mouth, and I watch as people still run around, frantically trying to figure out what happened.
Then I see him. Malakai.
I want to scream out, to let him know I’m right here, tucked in behind the stage in the dark, a man holding onto me, but I can’t move, I can’t scream, and the gun pressed against my head digs in harder, a warning.
“Where the fuck is she?” I read Malakai’s lips as he roars, frantically looking around.
“Was here a second ago,” Mason says, his eyes searching the area.
They go right past me.
They can’t see me.
Tears roll down my cheeks as I watch them panic, Malakai’s face holds an expression I’ll not forget anytime soon. He’s scared for me. I know what he’s thinking, and he’s right, he just doesn’t know it yet. He barks some more orders at the few men he has with him, and starts his search again, leaving me here with this monster, whoever he is.
After a few moments, when the people have died down and gone in the direction of Scarlett, the man pulls me out and straight to the barrier surrounding the back area of the fair. A huge hole is cut in the fencing surrounding it. He simply moves the advertising mesh covering the fence, and slips through it. Nobody would ever know, unless they looked. Once we’re on the other side, he spins me around to face him, and I don’t recognize him.
But he knows I’m partially deaf, because he looks at me to speak to me. Which means he’s probably with Trey.
This has to be Trey.
I feel sick.
Fear has hold of me, and my hands shake.
“You walk with me. You move, I’ll turn and shoot the closest kid I can find. You’ll have to watch that. You’ll have to live with that. Then I’ll blow your brains out. Clear?”
I nod, fighting the tears.
He pulls me next to him, like he’s simply holding his girlfriend close as they walk through the crowd. There are people everywhere, we wouldn’t be seen even if we were being looked for. The people in the crowd are too frantic to care. Once he steps out of the darkness near the fence, we blend into the crowd and he holds me with such force my ribs burn with the warning his fingers are giving me.
We move to one of the exits, where security is frantically letting people out.
They don’t even glance at me. There are too many people rushing out, desperate to just go home after what happened on that stage. They wouldn’t have time to check everyone even if they tried. They’d get trampled.
Once we’re in the parking lot, a dark car pulls up and the door opens. I’m shoved inside and we disappear before anyone knows any better.
The man in the passenger seat turns around, grinning at me.
Eyes cold as ice.
“Hello, Amalie, good to see you again.”
Treyton.
I knew it.
-16-
MALAKAI
“She’s fuckin’ gone!” I roar when the crowds have disappeared and the fair has been officially evacuated. The only people left are cops and security and a heap of reporters.
But no Amalie.
She ran off that stage, by the time I got around there, she was gone. Fucking gone, disappeared into thin air.
My heart races with a fear I’ve never felt. If Treyton has her, he’ll kill her. There’s no doubt about it. He was behind that shooting and instead went for the next best thing when Amalie stopped Scarlett getting hit. He wants someone dead. He wants to make it known he’s not messing around.
And now he has my girl.
“Calm down, Mal,” Maverick says, lighting a cigarette and inhaling it rather frantically. “We gotta think clearly, or he’ll get away with this, and he is not fuckin’ gettin’ away with this. Not again.”