Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Pray that Xavier didn’t do anything to shut it down.
I mash my fingertips against the screen, begging, pleading—oh, thank God!
A low beep.
Barely there, the sound purposefully muted so it won’t alert whoever might be listening to someone seeking help.
But it’s there.
If I’m lucky, maybe that’s enough.
Maybe Micah will save me one last time.
Even if he doesn’t love me, I know he’d never leave me to die.
I just hope there’s time.
Who knows how much longer this drive is.
Time doesn’t have much meaning in this blind killing darkness. My head throbs with adrenaline.
And I feel every movement when the bouncy road changes, like we’re moving over a different kind of pavement now.
It slows, turns, then stops.
I brace myself, biting the inside of my cheek, assessing my pathetic options.
What can I do? Headbutt whoever opens the trunk?
But nobody does.
My chest tightens.
I hear voices, other engines in the distance, but no one even bangs on the trunk, let alone opens it.
What’s happening? What’s he doing?
Is it even Xavier who brought me here or just some minion doing his dirty work?
My mind runs away with me, wondering if someone can suffocate to death in a car trunk. Is that what they’re going to do? Use my asthma against me, so that even if a healthy person might survive a long time in a car trunk, I’ll asphyxiate and die?
Or did Xavier hand me over to the Jacobins to finish the job?
Ugh.
Vicious images flash through my head, all the horrific things they could do to me. I don’t even want to think about what Culver Jacobin almost did to Delilah Graves.
But I can’t help myself.
Especially when there are worse things a gang of men can do to a woman while she’s still alive…
No! No, that’s not going to happen.
Micah’s going to show up and put a stop to this any second.
And if he doesn’t… well, I’ll find a way out.
I’ll save myself.
Even if I have to use my teeth, I’ll give them a fight.
Right now, though, I need my arms and legs free.
Curling my fingers, I stretch them as far as I can, feeling at the ropes around my wrists. Feels like nylon, like the kind of emergency cords you find in car kits.
Not good.
That kind of nylon knots tight, and even two free hands would have trouble getting it untied.
Oh, but I try.
Even though my knuckles hurt and it aches to reach, pulling on the tendons in my wrists and making the rope bite my skin, I feel along the wrapped cords until I find the knot.
Crap!
There goes my manicure.
I’m picking at the closest knot with my fingernails and getting nowhere.
I just can’t pull it free, but I can feel something else.
Oh.
Subtle fraying.
That happens with nylon sometimes, doesn’t it?
You can pick and pick until the fibers come loose.
If they’re going to ignore me, maybe I can use this precious time to tear the cord apart.
Still counting under my breath, I work frantically, fuzzy threads brushing against my wrists and tickling the sides of my palms.
Slowly, one fiber at a time, I tease one bit free.
Then another, making a mess of the weave.
I don’t think I’ll be able to fully unravel the cord, but I don’t need to.
I just need to unravel it so the knots aren’t so tight, and I can work them loose.
I work at it for what feels like an eternity.
Until my fingers are nothing but pain.
Until my fingertips burn and I can feel the blisters forming.
Until my arms and wrists are so sore I could sob, but I won’t.
Until I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to bite back the pain, knowing if they hear me, it’s over.
Bit by bit, I rip that cord apart until my fingernails are ragged, and then I use that to snag even more of the nylon weave and pull a few more threads free.
Pain is nothing.
I’ve known it my entire life.
Just like I knew the pain of Micah’s touch, teaching me that sometimes pain can be a beautiful thing.
And sometimes pain has purpose.
Pain gets my adrenaline going, makes me breathe, pushes me to try harder, fight on. And just as I test the knots and think maybe I’ve found a little slack, there’s a ker-CHUNK of the trunk popping open.
I’m paralyzed.
I almost yell out No! I was so close—so close, if I’d just had my hands free I could’ve—
It doesn’t matter.
The trunk swings open.
After a breathless moment of pure terror, I’m blinded by dim starlight and a few distant red and orange running lights.
There’s no mistaking Xavier Arrendell, looking down at me with cold contempt, the faint ocean-scented breeze ruffling his hair in blond arcs.
“You really are a clueless bitch,” he says flatly.
Then he grabs me by the arm, hauling me up with a brute strength that nearly dislocates my arm.
I refuse to scream.
And as he drags me up to kneel on the edge of the trunk with the metal biting into my calves?