Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
He enjoyed this. Relished my pain. I couldn’t stand it, but I put up with it. Not making a sound. Accepting what he was doing to me. I’d been too dazed from the blows to the head.
This wasn’t me. I knew this. I was a fighter. I didn’t quit, and yet here I lay as if I’d given up. As if I’d given them the key to my soul.
I closed my eyes as he released me.
If they didn’t find me soon, I was going to die. I knew that.
The sound of metal on stone forced me to open my eyes. Dean approached. He carried a blade in his grip and he smiled at me.
“You know, River was taken once. He was held in a similar place to this, bound, tortured. All because your fucking dad ordered it! I should do to you what was done to him. Make you pay for your father’s sins. I should have killed you when I had the chance.” The tip of the blade pressed against the skin of my stomach. I tried not to breathe but panic began to build within me. I was terrified, and as he pressed the blade to my skin, I released a whimper.
“I wonder if seeing you all cut up will remind him of what happened to him.” He pushed the blade against my skin, not stabbing me but nicking my skin so it hurt so damn badly.
Tears filled my eyes. “Please,” I said.
“Are you going to beg us to stop, is that what is about to happen?” he asked.
I’d begged my father until I’d stopped. He never did. The beatings came regardless and even now, if I begged them, pleaded with them, offered them whatever it was they wanted on a silver platter, I knew they wouldn’t care. None of them would. They wanted to see me hurt. To watch my pain.
I couldn’t give them the satisfaction.
All I could do was accept the pain.
Endure the suffering.
I stilled as he moved to another part of my body. The blade pierced my skin. I screamed. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to take this.
Fight!
I didn’t have to lie down.
They were going to kill me regardless. Why not surprise them in the process?
With my screams, I kept them distracted. I used my hand to try to find something to hit them with. I reached out, trying to grab something, anything, and when I felt a rock, I grabbed it and slammed it against Dean’s head, knocking him backward. In the process, he dropped the knife. Before Daniel could get it, I had it within my grasp and I got to my feet, glaring at them.
“I bet you weren’t expecting that.”
I felt the blood from my wounds dripping down my flesh. It made me want to vomit, but somehow, I kept it all inside and glared at both of them.
I waited. Desperate for one or more of them to attack me.
Daniel came in first, but I was no match for him. I was able to swipe him with the blade, but as I went left, he moved right, grabbing me around the waist. His grip was too tight, and Dean came at me, backhanding me as he took the knife from me. Before I knew what was happening, he’d stabbed me in the shoulder.
I yelled.
If anyone was near, they had to have heard it.
He pulled the blade out and Daniel tossed me to the floor, kicking me in the back. I tried to scramble away, but he grabbed me by my hair, pulling my head back. “I don’t mind fucking a corpse,” he said.
He tilted my head back more and Dean handed him the blade. It came close to my neck and then a gun went off. The blade dropped down to the ground, and me along with it. I shivered as the sudden cold filled the room.
I didn’t exactly know what happened next as warmth surrounded me.
After everything I’d just been through, I closed my eyes for only a moment, but when I opened them again, I saw the sky.
Was I dead?
I didn’t know.
It was okay to close my eyes.
To go to sleep.
The pain would kill me soon.
****
Gael
I sat in our woman’s private hospital room.
She’d lost a great deal of blood.
For at least an hour, my dad and Caleb’s dad had been beating her, hurting her. She had bruises, missing clumps of hair, and knife wounds.
Caleb and Earl had gotten to her first. Leaning forward, I put my elbows on my knees and prayed. That was all I did. I didn’t know if anyone listened, but I hoped they wouldn’t take our woman away.
I couldn’t stand it.
Drake was in the other room. We’d tracked him through the GPS on his cell phone to a bar in town. Our dads’ final contacts were waiting. They’d beaten him up good. He’d been strung up and used as a piñata.