Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Hours.
The chances of us finding her alive were slim. And the chances of finding her unharmed were none.
None.
I hadn’t memorized every inch of her skin as I should’ve. Hadn’t learned it. Hadn’t tasted enough of her. My memories of her smooth, perfect body would remain that … memories.
“There’s still a chance,” Lucas said as the door closed. “We can still find her, she’s gonna be fine.”
I stared at my friend, my brother. “Jenna was stabbed fifty-two times,” I reminded him. “Fifty-two.”
His shoulders visibly sagged.
“The last victim before her was tortured for hours,” I continued, my voice shaking. “He tore off strips of her skin while she was alive. Her ovaries were outside of her body. Her hands were almost amputated by the cuffs he used; she was that desperate to escape.”
“One of the victims nearly tore her hands off trying to get away from him while he was vivisecting her alive!” I roared.
I could feel it, fury crawling up my throat. My vision had black spots dancing in it.
The sound of a phone ringing echoed in the silent room. I waited for someone to answer. No one did. Because it was my phone.
I scrambled to answer it, hoping to hear Sariah’s tired voice, her tales about how she’d escaped unharmed.
“Am I on speaker?” an unfamiliar woman asked.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Put me on fucking speaker now,” she demanded.
Unable to say why, I did as she asked.
“The killer is Elijah Burrows, otherwise known as Beau Granger,” the woman on the phone said.
Everyone in the room went still.
“How do you know this?” was Hansen’s measured answer.
“I know it because I’ve spent every spare hour I’ve had looking for him since Sariah got me involved in this,” she replied. “And I’ve been breaking laws that would have me locked up without a key in order to find him in time ever since I heard Sariah was taken.”
I straightened in realization. “You’re Ollie.”
“The one and only.” All business, she pressed on. “Beau was born to what I understand you refer to as ‘club girls.’” she spoke quickly, not unlike Wire. “From what I can tell, it was rough. She was eventually murdered by the club.”
“Makes sense why he hates us,” Hansen muttered.
“I don’t give a fuck about his history. I want to know his location,” I slammed my hand not holding the cell against the table.
“Get in line, buddy, and hold onto your shit. You can unleash it when you get him.” I could hear Ollie typing in the background as she spoke. “He’s smart enough not to have his cell on him or take the squad car to his location, but I’m digging into his and all known alias’s purchase records for a vehicle that I’m really fucking hoping isn’t some ancient Ford I can’t track.”
Though I wasn’t really a praying type of guy, I found myself pleading with the unknown.
The sound of keys tapping was the only sound we heard for what felt like ages before Ollie spoke again.
“Bingo,” she whispered.
My hand was starting to cramp from holding my cell so tightly.
“Okay, he’s got a Pathfinder, and it’s equipped with a GPS tracking system,” she murmured, sounding distracted. “Hacking into that system now…”
It only took a few seconds, but they were the longest of my fucking life.
“Got it,” she said. “Warehouse. Looks like thirty minutes away.”
“Send the details to my phone,” I barked, hoping that Sariah had thirty minutes.
SARIAH
What happened with the knives was about as worse as anyone could imagine.
No, it was much worse than anyone could imagine. I’d thought I understood what was done to his previous victims because I’d seen the crime scene photos, read about the injuries.
But I knew jack shit.
I didn’t know what it felt like for cold metal to tear through skin, muscle and organs. I didn’t know pain existed where your very bone marrow seemed to scream for mercy. And scream I did.
Pleaded. Cried.
I did all the things that many people probably thought they wouldn’t do. And he did many things that weren’t in the police reports. Horrible things. Evil things that made me look forward to death.
I didn’t remember a whole lot about the rescue. In my defense, I was in a pretty bad way.
Elijah—or whoever he was—had done a number on me by that point. Death was close. I knew that. Could feel it. Was looking forward to it. I’d never tasted anything sweeter on my tongue than the oncoming mercy of death.
Death meant no more pain. No more torture.
I’d thought I was a fighter. Fuck, that was part of this whole identity I had going on. It was pitiful how quickly that part of me was lost. How all of me was lost in this cold warehouse.
That’s when the rescue came.
Elijah had gone somewhere, maybe it had been for an hour, maybe a moment. Time was hazy.