Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Oh, God.
I sway at the sight of the blood but dart my eyes over to the window. With newfound urgency, I make my way over to the window and begin fiddling with the lock. I flip it open and wrench the window up. It takes some work, but I manage to get it up high enough to squeeze through. The fire escape provides me with the out I need. With each passing second, I find more clarity.
I must get away.
And I need to make sure he never finds me again.
Abandoning my heels so I can run faster, I scale down the fire escape ladder as quickly as I can. When I reach the bottom, I hop down the rest of the way right into a puddle. The alley of the apartment building is empty, but at the end of one side is a busy street. I take off, sprinting toward the cars that keep passing by.
“Hey, baby, stay awhile,” some guy smoking hollers at me.
I ignore him and run faster right out into the middle of traffic. A car slams on its brakes. I lock eyes with a woman around my mom’s age as the front of her car bumps my hip. She has a teenage girl in the passenger side with her, who wears a similar stunned reaction.
“Please,” I beg through my tears. “I need help.”
She’s still gaping at me when I round the side of the car. Other vehicles swerve around her car, that’s stopped in the middle of the street, and honk. I beat on her window as terror threatens to consume me. A quick look over my shoulder tells me he isn’t after me yet.
“Please,” I plead again, “I’ve just been raped.”
This seems to jolt her into action. With a shaking hand, she hits the unlock button on her car. I scramble into the backseat and find myself staring at a wide-eyed toddler in a car seat.
“Wh-Where do you want me to go?” the woman asks.
“Anywhere away from here,” I cry out. “Just hurry.”
She peels out and hauls off down the road. The baby in the back starts to cry. When I look at the girl in the front seat, her flesh is pale as she stares out the windshield. She grips her mother’s hand to the point her knuckles turn white.
“Are you okay?” the woman asks, her panicked eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
I swallow and nod. Relief floods through me as realization sets in. I’ve escaped. I’ve finally slipped from Vaughn’s death grip.
“I am now.”
“Baby,” a deep voice coos, dragging me from my nightmarish past. “It’s me, Gray.”
I chance a peek and am thankful to see his concerned blue eyes darting all over me. My face is cradled in his strong hands as he regards me.
“Talk to me, Violet,” he murmurs, worry in his tone. “You scared the shit out of me.”
With hot tears welling in my eyes, I blurt out the memory of the night I escaped. Detail by horrifying detail. I don’t stop until I finish. The room grows silent for a few moments before I chance a look at him.
Gray’s features are positively manic with hate and fury. He’s clenching his jaw so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t break in two. But the way he drags his thumb across my bottom lip is gentle and reverent.
“I’m going to obliterate his goddamned skull into a thousand pieces,” he seethes. “That is my vow to you.”
Again with these intense proclamations—proclamations that should scare me but instead warm me to my very soul. I want him to hurt Vaughn. I want Vaughn eliminated from this earth so he doesn’t hurt other women.
“I’m fucked up,” I tell him, my voice wobbly. “You’re the first person I ever told that story to. My therapist knows the gist and the women’s shelters I bounced around to in the beginning had an idea. But nobody knows, in detail, what happened.” I bite on my bottom lip and frown. “Maybe I should have spared you the graphic details.”
His grip is firm on my jaw and he shakes his head. “I need to know every single detail about every single thing that ever happened to you. I want to steal those horrific memories and wear them like the burn scars on my back so you don’t have to fucking carry them around anymore. Please,” he pleads, his lips pressing to mine. “Give them all to me. Let me take them and replace them with something good. We can be good together. Don’t you feel that, Violet?”
I nod and smile because I can feel it.
His presence overwhelms me with safety and warmth.
A giant security blanket.
I’ve been shivering with the chill of my past for far too long. It’s long past time I relied on someone else to help carry that burden for me.