Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
The problem is that Dr. Ida was dealing with a man having a psychotic breakdown. I’m dealing with a man who’s straight up psychotic.
I’m going to have to improvise on the list, but I’m going to try. I must try. I’ll do anything to make up for the sins of my father. I’ll pray to every god. I’ll sink to the lowest of the lows, because I will finish my work, even if it’s with a gun to my head during and a bullet in my brain after.
One way or another, I will be free.
Chapter Twelve
Thinking you’re going to die one minute and live the next is downright exhausting. I’m emotionally and mentally drained when I hear doors open, and I’m pulled from the vehicle. The blindfold is ripped away. The bright light that’s creating a halo in my vision. Once my eyes focus, I can see the vehicle I was traveling in is an unmarked black van. Not the soccer-mom kind, but the industrial kind plumbers or electricians use. I’m set on my feet, but my legs are wobbly and my feet are still tethered at the ankles. I stumble but don’t fall, held up by the large warm palm of my captor.
Smoke braces my bicep with one hand and bends to cut away my restraints with the other.
“Are you this rough with everyone you kidnap?” I bite out. I realize it’s not smart to insult him. The Dr. Ida of my imagination is slapping a ruler against my palms.
“Sorry, I’m out of touch dealing with the living. Most people I encounter stop breathing after a few seconds. I’ll try to be more fucking gentle next time,” he says.
He’s being sarcastic, but it’s the truth in his words that hit me in the gut. He doesn’t usually kidnap people. He kills them.
There’s no aftercare involved in killing.
We’re in the middle of a field in front of a large U-shaped building with broken windows that looks as if it’s an abandoned school of some sort. Weeds, vines, and graffiti take up most of the chipped brick exterior. A dilapidated metal fence around the perimeter is missing entire sections I assume are somewhere under the thick brush growing between the chain links. The parts that are still standing have a metal slinky looking wire sitting at the top. Barbed wire. It’s not a school at all.
It’s a prison.
Or at least, it was.
There’s no sign of life. No sounds except the crunching of the brush under our feet as Smoke leads me over thick woven brush at least a foot high. I get caught up in it several times. My foot sinking to the bottom of the tangled vines and holding me there until Smoke cuts them away with a long, serrated knife from his belt, urging me forward into the building.
We enter through a car-sized hole in the side of the building. We climb over a steep pile of crumbled brick in order to get inside.
I stumble, my foot slipping on the brick several times until Smoke picks me up with ease, setting me back on my feet on the other side of the pile.
He nudges my shoulders, and I slowly move forward into the prison, his heavy footsteps follow closely behind, echoing off the walls as if there is more than one of him behind me.
We move deeper into the cellblock down a wide hall. The building is two stories. One row of cells on top of the other. A corroded staircase stands in the very middle of the large room. Furry brown dust and mold clings to the air ducts running the length of the ceiling. Rust peeks out through the dozens of layers of prison green paint peeling from the walls. Graffiti is everywhere, even high above the cells where I’m left wondering how on earth the artist got all the way up there.
Broken windows let in an occasional breeze that can’t be felt in the stagnant heat outside. A torn piece of paper floats across the floor in front of us like a prison tumbleweed. Warm air hits my sweaty skin. I shiver, the warmth doing nothing to stop the chill from stabbing its way through my skin down into my bones like an ice pick. My lower jaw vibrates. My teeth chatter so loudly the sound echoes around in my brain. To make it stop I clamp my jaw so tight I’m sure my teeth are about to crack.
It smells like death.
My stomach rolls.
Decay thickens the air and makes it hard to breathe. It’s more than just a smell. It’s a feeling. A feeling I fear I’ll never be able to rid from my nostrils or my thoughts. It sticks with me, covers me, cages me in as if I need a reminder that, like the many who’ve been here before, I am a prisoner.