Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“Not exactly the spice of originality.” He forced her neck at a painful angle. “I’m disappointed.”
She should’ve known. After Lucia got the drop on him, he’d be hyper-vigilant about strikes to the head.
“You said I don’t have an opinion.” She squirmed, unable to relieve his eye-watering grip on her hair. “Then you asked me to be honest about your wounds. Excuse me if I’m having trouble with your contradictory rules.”
She needed to figure out a different way to fight him. If she could reach him with words, say something he found intriguing, maybe he’d keep her alive.
A heart-pounding smile wrenched his lips. So disturbing, that mouth. As it fell into a slack line, his sudden lack of expression produced a sick, buckling sensation in her stomach.
He released her hair, straightened his seated position on her pelvis, and removed something from his pants pocket. “You might think all human skin cuts the same beneath a blade.”
Her pulse quickened as he slipped a small metal instrument onto his index finger and unfolded the tip. It opened like a switch blade and curved into a lethal claw.
All the air vacated her lungs. She couldn’t unfreeze her gaze from the glinting steel, couldn’t feel her heart beat or move her hands and feet. Her fear was brutal, her mind a torture chamber of the grisly things to come as she fast forwarded the swipe of his finger, the sharp edge slicing her from neck to gut, and the slick gush of blood that would bathe her final moments.
He tilted the razor inches from her face, causing light to dance across the surface. “Cutting a woman, it’s different than cutting a man. The blade must be held with a passionate hand, and when feminine skin separates, it doesn’t just bleed. It weeps.”
Throbbing pressure built in the back of her throat and swelled behind her eyes. His words, the clinical apathy in his voice, the unfeeling look on his face… He was deeply deranged, inhumanly evil, and it scared the living hell out of her.
Tremors crashed through her body. She wanted to believe she was a strong person, that she could endure the worst of his depravity without breaking. But she wasn’t and couldn’t. She couldn’t even rein in her emotions at the sight of his blade.
As she shoved down the panic, it bubbled back up. As she blanked her face, the muscles in her cheeks contracted and quivered. She swallowed ugly, miserable sounds, but they broke through, fracturing the silence and exposing her fragility.
It was such a helpless feeling—the choking breaths, the godawful constriction in her chest, the inconsolable horror. Her chin trembled, chattering her teeth. She blinked rapidly, tried to stop the worst of it before it spilled from her eyes, tried to hold herself together with invisible arms. There was no comfort to be found.
She couldn’t remember the last time she was this terrified. Everything inside her twisted and swelled to the point of unraveling. She ached to surrender to it and mentally played out what it would feel like to give in to the tears, to the uncontrollable sobbing, to abandon the fight and let defeat pull her under. She longed for that, to give up and accept her fate. God, the relief in letting go would be extraordinary.
But when her meltdown was over, there would be nothing left. He would still be here, getting off on her pathetic show. He wouldn’t even have to cut her. Her misery alone would feed his sadism. It would make him stronger.
He didn’t see her as a person. She was an object, a thing to play with and torment. Eventually, he would grow bored and toss away her pieces like a broken toy. Then he would find another.
Fuck that.
A heavy stillness fell over her. A purpose. She wasn’t dead yet. That meant she could change her fate, rewrite the ending. But how?
He ghosted the razor’s edge along her brow, just a whispered touch of steel that put every nerve in her body into cardiac arrest.
With great effort, she dragged her attention away from the blade and focused on the shadows in his eyes.
What made him become so vicious? Was he born into a life of crime? Did he have any loved ones? Anyone important to him?
He seemed to respect Lucia, said she was fierce and resilient. But Kate wasn’t fearless, and he already scolded her for trying to be brave.
There was something broken inside him. That much was obvious. She had no clue how to decode his fucked-up mind, but after her experience with Van, she’d been drawn to documentaries and psychiatric studies about violent criminals.
There was evidential research that linked personal trauma to the making of a murderer. Not all serial killers were victims of abuse, but many experienced brutal childhoods. She couldn’t diagnose him or pretend he was anything other than a criminal, but maybe she could reach him in a way no else had tried?