Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Again, therapy both sucked and delivered the hard truth I needed to hear.
“Did you even miss me?” He jumped to his feet and stalked toward me.
“Did you even know?” I snapped back, angry at myself, at him, at seeing him again without any sort of armor on, completely vulnerable. “A day later when I was gone and saw you at another work dinner with your female assistant while I bled out on the floor?”
His eyes widened. “What? What are you talking about? And Krista was engaged, you know that, madly in love with her boyfriend, and why were you bleeding?” He reached for me.
I wanted to lean into that touch. Instead, I jerked away. “Nevermind.” I ignored the way his face completely paled at the thought of me being hurt, because it hurt knowing that just that one small sentence changed his entire demeanor. “I still have my student loans and we have five minutes to maze our way through the games.”
“Um, no, you don’t get to pause after saying blood or my assistant and you sure as hell aren’t allowed to use maze as a verb within that same traumatic paragraph.”
“Oh please, I could maze my way through anything.” I gave him the middle finger and smiled at his irritation. “Now follow the rest of the teams and let’s grab a map.”
“They have maps?”
Laminated, most likely if I was a betting person.
“Um…” I started walking away from him, I needed air that wasn’t consumed with the way he smelled and the memories that came with it. “Genius, I’m pretty sure if there’s a maze they have a map.” Idiot. I kept that part to myself and by the time we met the rest of the group at the elevators, it was to hear Max shout.
“And there will be no maps.” He announced loudly.
Ace snorted behind me. I swear I heard I told you so in that short, one second snort.
I elbowed him in the ribs and earned a grunt, only to realize it wasn’t Ace. I quickly looked to my left, he waved and grinned.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered and looked down at the guy’s nametag. “Deacon!” Didn’t need to yell his name, but apparently that’s what came out of my mouth, a pathetic yell right in his face. “I’m so sorry, I thought it was someone more evil standing behind me.”
Ace rolled his eyes from his spot a few feet away.
Deacon grinned down at me. His eyes were all wrong though, they were brown not green, not that I was comparing. I wasn’t crazy. “I mean, I guess I can be evil if that’s your—“
“—And we’re done.” Ace grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me next to him.
“Hey.” I jerked away from him. “Don’t be an ass. He was nice.”
Ace’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. Did you see his face? Serial killer written all over him, probably buys extra ice just in case he needs to keep a body cold so he can chop it up and put it into the freezer without it going bad.”
I craned my head to the side. “At the risk of sounding crazier than you, does freezing the body make the cutting easier?”
He narrowed his eyes like he’d seen things. “I mean, I don’t know. I just notice that in the documentaries they keep the bodies fresh.”
I nodded. Kind of made sense. “Like fish.”
“Exactly like fish.” He agreed quickly. “But I guess, not the same.”
“No, that’s a bit Hannibal Lecter.”
Ace nodded. “It’s a lot Hannibal Lecter with a side of feeding your chicken chicken. You know?”
At that moment, Deacon raised his hand. “What happens if something happens to your partner, they get hurt or lost, or you never know.” His smirk deepened.
I gasped. “I feel like he needs to finish that sentence. Where did the rest go, and why is he smiling over losing or hurting his partner?”
“He feeds chicken to chickens. He’s a monster and a killer,” he whispered. “Ice machine maker, downright dirty collector of all his partners’ bodies.” He shook his head. “See? Saved your life.”
I shoved him away when I realized how close he was and started smelling his cologne for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. “Whatever, let’s just win, I have debt, and…” My hair got caught in his shirt button, forcing me to touch his very firm pecks in an effort to break free. “…Stop working out!”
“It’s healthy!” He grabbed my hair and tried to twist it out.
“Not for my hands!” I hissed. “Get it out.”
“Huh, you don’t want it in?” He joked.
“Gross! Sexual harassment, work case violation! Page three!”
“That doesn’t exist on page three, it’s page twelve, now keep your voice down!” He spun me around and quickly untangled my hair, then shoved me forward with force when the doors to the elevator doors opened. “Off to our first adventure, I mean, I know people always say not to say how hard could it be? But seriously, it’s Max and Dustin, how hard could it really be?”