Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
She’d tried.
Four days ago, she asked to borrow her mother’s car again, but as she drove toward the police station, she felt a sticky sense cover her from behind. She realized it was Justin on a motorcycle trailing her from a distance.
His face had been concealed by the helmet that he wore and a handkerchief across his face.
But she knew.
She knew.
She panicked and turned around, and he followed her all the way back to her house before he rode away.
The heavy roar of the engine had cleaved through her like a threat of what would befall her if she did what she so desperately wanted to do.
What she had to do.
But she remained a coward. Hiding behind closed doors. Too spineless and selfish to stand for what was right.
But she couldn’t go on like this.
She couldn’t pack her bags and return to New York and pretend like this never happened.
She couldn’t carry this guilt.
It was just before nine in the morning on the day she was supposed to leave that she finally forced herself out the door. Early enough that Justin would likely still be asleep. She took her father’s car, one Justin had never seen or ridden in before, praying if he was watching, he wouldn’t recognize it.
Her hands clattered against the steering wheel, and she was barely able to keep hold of the leather as she slowly wound through her family’s neighborhood, taking the two turns required to get her out onto the main road.
Nausea churned in her guts as she searched, terrified that Justin was going to pop out of nowhere.
Her pulse boomed then thundered when a blue car suddenly pulled out behind her.
It was right there, following her, one turn and then another.
A breath of relief curled from her lungs when she finally was able to make out that it was a young woman in the driver’s seat.
Probably close to her age.
“Get it together, Piper. You can do this. You have to do this. It’s your duty,” she muttered below her breath.
An obligation.
Her soul’s charge.
It didn’t matter what happened to her. What consequences she faced. She couldn’t allow Justin to get away with this.
Sucking in a cleansing breath, she pulled out onto the main road. Every molecule in her body trembled as she drove toward the police station that was five miles away.
Fear gripped her in its steely fist. Her pulse careening as she carefully drove down the street.
The light ahead turned red. Agitation blistered through her as she slowed to a stop.
She glanced in her rearview mirror again and noticed the blue car was still there.
Sitting at the stoplight two cars behind her.
Foreboding slogged through her consciousness.
Her chest felt like it was being slowly pulled apart, the pressure increasing on her ribs with each passing second.
“You can do this. You’re just being paranoid,” she urged herself.
Still, she turned on her blinker and shifted into the left turn lane, needing the reassurance that she was making it up.
Her spirit tumbled when the blue car slowly did the same.
Sweat gathered at her nape and slipped down her spine. Panic surged through her as she made the next right and the blue car did the same.
“No. No, no, no.”
She wouldn’t let this happen.
She fumbled to get her phone, fingers quivering as she tried to dial 911.
A scream ripped out of her when she was suddenly slammed from behind. Her phone flew out of her hand, and she rammed on the brakes, her eyes frantic as she looked around for help.
Two cars passed coming in the opposite direction and another one that came up from her rear kept traveling.
None of them bothered to stop.
Panic surged through Piper when the girl jumped out of her car.
A frenzy was on her face. Her own panic. A storm as she rushed up to Piper’s door.
Frantic, she smacked her hands on the window, and Piper yelped, fumbling to get to the phone that had landed on the front passenger side floorboards.
“I’m here to help you. Please, open the door. You need to listen.” Hysteria spilled out of her as she shouted through the glass.
Pure desperation.
Piper warred.
Three more cars were coming up the other way.
She was right out in the open. Nothing was going to happen to her there.
Swallowing around the barbed wire in her throat, she slowly cracked open the door, terror still clattering through her bloodstream.
“You have to listen,” the girl rushed. Her attention whipped around like she was afraid that someone was following her, too. “He sent me to kill you. It’s a test for me. A test to find out if I’m loyal to him. But I won’t. I won’t hurt you.”
Horror seized Piper’s heart, and she reared back, struggling to get the air into her failing lungs.
Turbulence vibrated from the girl as she searched the area again before she angled back down. “He knows that you are going to go to the police. He set you up. Your face is on the camera at that man’s door. You have to get out of here. You have to get out of this city and never come back.”