Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
My breathing comes out in ragged breaths as I pause, and another yelp echoes through the woods.
Grey.
I run past some trees and bushes, only to come to a clearing in the middle of the woods. In the middle is a lonely chair, wrapped with ropes, and along with it the boy with pearly white hair who stole my heart.
A shriek nearly rolls off my tongue, so I slap my hand in front of my mouth.
God, I want him to know I’m here so badly, but if Levi hears me, I’ve lost, and Grey is done for.
Swallowing the scream, I look around the area, but I don’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary. He’s hiding somewhere.
Suddenly, a knife slithers underneath my chin.
He’s so close to me that I can feel his breath against my skin. “Don’t move.”
Sweat drops roll down my forehead. “Levi,” I say through gritted teeth. “Let him go.”
“I don’t think so. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t stay away from him,” he grits.
“He has nothing to do with this,” I say.
“He has everything to do with this,” Levi growls back, his hard abs pressing into my body. “Don’t you understand?” A maniacal laugh follows, and he pushes me forward, snatching the bag right off my shoulder.
I immediately sidestep and steady my knife, spinning on my heels to stab him, but the second I lay eyes on that scary white mask on his face, my hand begins to quake.
“Do I remind you of someone, little Firefly?” he says, a filthy smile forming beneath the mask. “So is this what your stalker looks like?”
“This isn’t a joke,” I growl back. “You don’t even know what he looked like.”
“You’re right. I’m missing something …” He taps his temple. “Ah, red eyes, right? Apollo told me.”
He’s mocking me.
“How dare you,” I grit.
His smile immediately dissipates, unlike the smile on the black skull printed on his white shirt. “You made me do this.”
He throws the bag away, and I slice the air between us, but he grabs my wrist and knocks the knife straight out of my hand.
“You fucking monster!” I yell, jerking free before running toward Grey.
“Me? The monster?” Levi laughs callously. “You’re looking at him right now, and you don’t even fucking see it when it’s right under your nose. News flash, he’s lying to you!”
I don’t know what he means, but if I can’t escape his sight, I’ll focus on freeing Grey before he gets to me.
I pull my last knife from my pocket and rush toward Grey. He throws me a side-glance, his eyes unhinged, lips smacking together, screaming against the cloth bound around his mouth.
I immediately start cutting through the ropes. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”
CLICK!
That sounded like …
I abruptly stop.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Frowning, I turn around toward the other side of the forest’s clearing, where another masked individual has a gun pointed right at Grey.
My eyes widen.
Apollo.
They’re conspiring together.
“You caught me in a moment of weakness, I admit …” Levi says as he sways the knife around that he stole from me. “But you forced my fucking hand.”
“I didn’t do shit!” I yell. “You’re a fucking psycho. First you kill my sister, and now you wanna kill my boyfriend too?”
“No … not yet anyway,” Apollo says.
His strut is pompous, muscles bursting through the thin black fabric of his shirt, in his hand a gun with the safety off.
“Don’t you lay a single fucking finger on him,” I growl, grabbing Grey’s arm.
“Too late,” Levi says. “How else do you think I could’ve dragged him out here into the fucking woods?” Levi sways the knife. “Look around you. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one will ever … ever … know.”
I swallow back the lump in my throat, and I look over my shoulder at Grey, who’s begging me with his eyes. I don’t want to lose him too, no matter how bad things get. I need him. I can’t let them do this.
“Now throw away the knife and I promise you won’t get hurt … I can’t promise you won’t enjoy what’s going to come next, though,” Apollo says.
“Bastard,” I say under my breath as I chuck it in his direction.
Apollo laughs as he picks it up. “Freckles, there’s no need for nicknames.”
“You promised!” I yell back at him.
Suddenly, his face tightens, the smile underneath the mask fading into oblivion. “And you didn’t show up in my room with your boyfriend like I told you to.”
Fuck.
I couldn’t believe he came to me at the fountain with a demand like that.
I thought he was just testing me.
And now that I declined, he sided with Levi.
“This was your choice, Aspen. Not mine,” Apollo says.
“He needs to be punished, and I want you to watch.” Levi points the knife at Grey. “So what’s it going to be, Aspen? Are we going to hurt him?”