Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 148238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Arthur Killian didn’t move.
I should’ve felt powerful—safer with the loaded weapon in my hands, but I didn’t. I felt exposed and a fake.
Just go.
I tiptoed toward the exit, looking over my shoulder, fearing he’d wake up. I stopped at the door frame, breathing hard.
He still hadn’t moved.
My heart thundered in my ears. This was my chance to bolt—to be free. But the thought of leaving him to bleed out on his floor—to die all alone—I…
The connection I suffered fisted my heart. What if you let the only person who might be able to grant you answers die?
I swiped a hand through my hair, hating the confusion inside.
I couldn’t let him die.
I stiffened.
But he wasn’t a nice man—by his own admission.
Spinning to face him, I leveled the gun at his head. Could I heal him, then walk away? I was the one with the gun—he would do what I demanded.
But where would I go?
I still had the impossibility of being homeless, clothesless, and nameless.
Perhaps, I should take myself to the hospital?
But if I did that, then I would only come back—driven by the itch to know—and be in the same predicament I was currently in with no bargaining power. Kill groaned, struggling to wake up. His outstretched arm tensed to push himself upright. He cried out, throwing himself onto his back.
My heart beat harder.
His eyes opened, confusion bright, even from the distance between us. Then recollection slammed into him, and he angled his head toward the door.
He froze when our eyes connected, the muzzle of the gun aimed at his skull.
It felt like an eternity that we stared. The challenge in his eyes. The threat. It danced between us, lacing with my rebellion and need for freedom—not just from him but this blank reality I’d awoken in.
I wanted to remember.
Ask him. Demand.
Kill laughed, his mirth echoing with pain. “You’re a good little liar, I’ll give you that.”
“Excuse me?”
“All that talk of healing me? What were you going to do? Grab the medical kit and find a way to stick a needle in my eye?” He writhed on the floor, slapping a hand over the injury in his pectoral. “I’m such a fucking idiot. Should’ve kept you at the compound. Let them deal with you.”
I inched forward, despite myself. “Why didn’t you?”
He glowered. “Why didn’t I what?”
“Why didn’t you leave me there? You left all the other girls there.”
Was it because you’re as intrigued with me as I am with you?
He growled, “You think you’re in a position to ask questions?”
The gun was warm and friendly in my hands, rather than an enemy. I dashed forward, standing just outside of grabbing distance but definitely in range to shoot, even as inexperienced as I was. “I think I’m in a perfect position to ask questions.”
Kill smirked. “Only until you screw up. Then I’ll take back my fucking gun and you’ll wish you’d squeezed the trigger when you had the chance.”
I ignored that.
Leveling the weapon at his forehead, I said, “A new deal. I’ll help heal you if you answer some of my questions. If I like your answers, I’ll stay. I won’t put up a fight, and I’ll give you back your gun.”
He frowned. “Why would you stay? You know what will happen to you.”
Because I prefer to deal with the devil I know rather than the one I don’t.
“I don’t have to answer that. It’s not me with a gun pointed at their head.”
“No, but it soon will be,” he muttered under his breath.
I skirted around him, careful to stay out of reaching distance. His green eyes followed me, never letting go. My skin prickled; my heart raced. When he looked at me like that—as if I were the only thing of importance in this world—the bond inside stretched and strengthened.
Who was he?
He played havoc with my willpower—my common sense. Everything I knew I should do seemed out of the question until I found out if we knew each other.
It couldn’t all be in my mind. Could it?
You’re willing to give up freedom—a long and happy life—all because you need reassuring that you somehow know him?
I shook my head. The questions were drowning me. I couldn’t focus on what I was giving up, only on what I hoped to gain.
“Will you take my deal or not?”
He scowled. “Doesn’t look like I have a fucking choice, does it?”
I shook my head again, my arm starting to ache with the weight of the pistol, revolver, whatever I held. “No. Not unless you want to bleed out all over your office floor.”
He chuckled breathlessly. “That would give the cleaning lady something to talk about.”
“I thought you said you live alone?” Nervousness attacked my legs, making me inch toward the door again.
He rolled his eyes, wincing. “I do. She comes twice a week.”
“And there’s no one else who might interrupt us?”