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)
When I didn’t move, his hand landed on my side. His touch was blocked by clothing but I felt it everywhere. He stroked my soul, tickled my heart, and caressed every cell with fingers that despised me.
I couldn’t suck in a proper breath.
With a vicious push, he rolled me over, and with a sharp blade sliced my bindings. With effortless power, so thrilling and terrifying, he hauled me to my feet.
I didn’t sway. I didn’t cry. Only pulled the disgusting gag from my mouth and stared in silence.
I stared up, up, up into his bright green eyes, understanding something I shouldn’t understand.
This was him.
My nightmare.
Chapter Two
I couldn’t fucking believe it. I wouldn’t fucking believe it. It was a lie. A horrible, terrible lie to undermine everything I’d done since they’d ruined me. The moment she’d looked into my eyes, I’d wanted so much to give in. To believe in the impossible.
But that naïveté had been beaten out of me.
I wouldn’t fall for it again.
—Kill
“Get them in here. Don’t have all night.”
The roller door on the back of the truck opened again. I blinked, thankful my eyes weren’t covered this time and everything was visible.
With steadfast determination, I focused on the next stage of my unknown life. The new destination wasn’t a field or grotty industrial estate. It was a large parking garage with low-hanging halogens and rows of motorcycles. A few muscle cars rested toward the back of the cavernous room, but there were more bikes than I could count.
My mind skipped back to the ride here. It hadn’t taken long.
After the green-eyed man who’d devoured my soul had unleashed my wrists, he’d picked me up and placed me back on the platform of the truck. He’d grunted in pain, his black shirt torn and soaking with copper, glistening in the night. The scent of blood hovered around him, pumping warm and sickly from whatever wound he tried to hide. He did well keeping his agony hidden. I’d tried to find where the wound originated, but it was impossible in the gloom of the truck’s interior.
He also hid his previous reaction to me. His eyes were shuttered, watching me like a perfect stranger. Whatever had happened between us was gone.
But it had happened. I wasn’t sure of anything else, but that one glimpse between us was deeper, truer, more real than anything I’d experienced.
The knowledge was a constant drumbeat in my bones, a never-ceasing rhythm demanding I found out more.
He knew me.
I knew him.
Of that I was absolute.
I need him alone. I need to know.
The moment I was reloaded into the van, the other women who’d been tossed to the ground were ferried on board, too—their blindfolds off, wrists freed.
I didn’t bother looking at or assessing my companions. Everything inside me turned inward—focusing on my own predicament, my lack of memory, and my unswerving knowledge that I had something to do with the ringleader of this mess. As selfish as it was, I had no time for others.
Not yet.
The man with green eyes didn’t join us. Instead, he’d growled orders at the three men hovering around us like dogs with a herd of sheep, and threw down the door with an almighty clang.
Darkness.
My heart wedged itself in my throat at once again losing my sight.
No light, or seats, or in-travel refreshments. The women were quiet, even though we had the power to talk once again. Clusters formed, shuffling closer in the blackness. One tried to take my hand, offering consolation in numbers.
I shook her off, preferring to stand alone, holding on to the side of the vehicle and paying attention to the sway of the cumbersome truck. I counted the corners we took. I drew a map inside my head. Not that it made any difference. I would never find my way home.
Where is home?
Exactly.
Even if I did get free, I had no idea where to run to, who to turn to for help. I was a damn mystery, and for now, I was in a place where none of that mattered.
Blinking, I forced myself back to the present and the garage full of motorbikes and muscle cars.
“Move, bitches.” A new man with a goatee appeared, chewing a piece of gum loudly.
The women shuffled forward into the light, cringing away from the offered hand of the man in the brown leather jacket.
Five.
Five women I counted as they all descended from the vehicle and into the new world of whatever existence we were in.
“You.” The man pointed in my direction. “You deaf?” He held out his hand, raising an eyebrow. “Come here.”
I narrowed my eyes, moving forward and placing my hand resolutely in his. “No, I’m not deaf.” Jumping down the small distance, I untangled my fingers from his the moment I touched the concrete.
The sound of my voice startled me. I have an accent. I hadn’t noticed before in the field.