Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not quite understanding.
It was as if he’d started having the conversation with me while I was still unconscious.
“I’m talking about how badly this is about to hurt.” He smiled.
I had no clue how bad that meant this was about to go until he demonstrated.
He reached forward and did something, making that burning pain in my hands start to sting even worse now.
That’s when I looked down to find my hands zip-tied to a board.
I swore and tried to yank my hands back, but I was all but plastered in place with something at my back, making it impossible for me to move.
“Have you ever thought about what it would feel like to have your hands chopped off?”
I felt sick to my stomach at Erich’s words.
“No,” I admitted truthfully. “I’ve never thought about that. Please, Erich. Let me go.”
“You know,” he said. “I’m no longer a business owner anymore,” he mused, pulling a knife from his pocket and flicking it open with one swift snap.
I licked my lips and started to struggle harder now. “Erich, please.”
I felt sick to my stomach, and I was seconds away from throwing up.
The more I struggled, the tighter the zip tie seemed to get around my wrist.
My hands were white. There was zero blood left in them at all.
“These are tourniquets,” he said as he placed a finger to what I thought was zip ties. “Every time you struggle, they get tighter and tighter because of these knots right here.”
He gestured to the knots that I hadn’t seen until now.
“I’ve always wondered myself if, when these knots were on and they were tight, if you could feel if there was a small cut above the knots.” He touched my hand with the tip of the knife. “Can you feel that?”
I swallowed hard past a lump in my throat and wasn’t sure what to say.
If I said yes, then he’d get satisfaction out of it. If I said no, he would do something like cut my hand off. I was sure of it.
He pressed down deeper, and I was surprised to see blood well up on the surface of my skin.
I didn’t feel the pain, though.
At least, I couldn’t differentiate it from the pain I was already feeling.
I moaned low in my throat and barely stopped myself from struggling.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“You didn’t,” he agreed, dragging the tip of the blade across the top of my wrist on both arms, left to right.
Blood welled.
Again, it didn’t hurt any more, or any less.
This was going to be very bad.
I knew it without a shadow of a doubt.
“But my dad did.” He paused. “Or my ex-stepdad. Whatever you call him. He made my life a living hell.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Did he?
I doubted it.
But I wasn’t about to contradict him.
If he was talking, that meant that he wasn’t doing anything too lethal… right?
Wrong.
“He never gave me what I wanted,” Erich snapped. “Always took, took, took. Until I had nothing left. He’s taken two of my restaurants that he helped me open. Did you know that? And you, my girlfriend, was the last straw. That was the last thing that he’ll ever take from me.”
I watched as he sliced that same path along each of my wrists.
Over and over until the board underneath my wrists had a pool of blood that I knew wasn’t good.
It was at that point, seeing the blood drip from the board to the ground, that I passed out.
When I woke next, I could no longer feel my hands.
I did know they were in the same position as they were the last time, though. I could feel my arms outstretched in front of me, and I could hear the steady drip of my blood.
“Here’s the reason for the shipment disaster,” I woke groggily to hear Erich say.
Erich? Why would Erich be there?
The more I asked myself that, the cloudier it became.
“She looks like she wouldn’t be able to hurt a fly,” a quietly deadly male voice said. “Who does she belong to?”
I barely stopped myself from saying ‘his dad.’
I peeled my eyes open far enough to allow some light in and shut them just as quickly.
The light. It burned.
But not in a bad way. In an ‘I haven’t seen the light of day for a while’ kind of way.
“She belongs to me,” Erich lied.
I couldn’t stop the sound of protest from leaving my lips even if I’d have wanted to.
The utter thought of belonging to Erich after knowing what I had in his dad? The sound that emitted from my throat was downright disgusted.
“Seems she wouldn’t agree with you.” The man’s voice was familiar somehow now. But I didn’t know why.
My brain was all foggy, and I still couldn’t get my eyes to open.