Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
The steps I take toward the warehouse are the longest of my life. I get deja vu from the last time I entered a warehouse, but this time is worse because what Rex told me last night is playing on repeat in my head.
I’ve been waiting for you all my life. You are everything to me.
I’m sorry, Rex. I draw my gun and push the door open, and it swings out of my way with a creaking whine.
I step in to face my fate.
21
This warehouse is smaller. Older.
The first thing I do is kick something. It goes skittering across the floor, rolling into a patch of light. A flashlight.
Did BK leave it for me? I clear the area and keep my head up when I crouch to pick the flashlight up. I deliberate for a moment. Should I keep it off and try to sneak around in here, or use it even though it leaves me without a free hand?
In the end, I flick it on and blink to adjust my eyes to its full brightness. I swing the beam in a circle, feeling braver. Normally, I’d use the flashlight on my phone, but BK made me surrender it.
The beam illuminates the far brick walls, stained black with soot. There are a few scattered feathers on the concrete floor.
I pace onwards, scanning for any movement with my gun at ready. If I’m going to die, I’ll take BK with me.
But I can’t kill BK without saving the family first.
I find them in the middle of the warehouse. Their bodies are lying in a circle, tied together. A brunette woman and two school-age children. Beyond them, a lanky, balding man is stretched out. I can’t see clearly, but he looks a lot like Ted. Must be his brother.
I shine the light on each face, but no one moves. My breath shorts out, but I push down my panic and focus on the mother. She’s alive. I let the light linger on the rise and fall of her chest long enough to make sure. She’s breathing. They all are. They’re not dead, only unconscious.
The family is surrounded by barbed wire. And worse, there are small cardboard boxes with wires spiraling out of them, duct-taped together and placed inside the barbed wire barrier near the family. These have to be explosive devices.
I approach slowly but keep my distance. The family is right there, and I can’t even touch them. Can’t shake them awake or drag them out to save them from their doom.
BK knew I would come to save them. He made it so I couldn’t do it.
It’s so evil that it takes my breath away. How many families has he terrorized?
It ends tonight. One way or another.
Without moving, I use the flashlight to search every square inch of the space around the family. There’s no movement. No one else is here.
But I know this isn’t over. He won’t be content with blowing the building now. He’ll want to see my face and know my torment.
There’s a crackling sound, and I jerk, raising my gun in that direction.
Someone taped a walkie-talkie to a metal post near the family. They used the same silver tape that they used to secure the explosives. I pace toward it, shining the light around it as if a bogeyman might be hiding in the shadows around the post.
BK doesn’t appear, but my sense of dread increases. I circle the post and end up facing the walkie-talkie, checking for any loose wires that might hint at an explosive device near it.
The walkie crackles again, and I almost leap out of my skin. Acid pools in my stomach. I point the gun at the radio, even though I know it’s only the voice of evil and not the whole man.
Another crackle, and this time, I can make out a word.
“Inara.” It might be the walkie-talkie distorting the man’s voice, but I recognize that flat tone from when I heard it years ago in my childhood bedroom.
I tuck the flashlight under my arm so I can grab the radio without holstering my gun. I rip it off the wall, duct tape and all, and stare down at it, breathing hard.
“You came,” the Bondage Killer says.
I don’t reply. He wanted me here, and I’m here. I need to say something, but I can’t force the words out of my throat.
It’s hard enough to hold it together.
And it doesn’t matter, because this is the Bondage Killer’s show. “Take the stairs.”
I have my gun in one hand and the walkie-talkie in the other. I clip the walkie to my belt and swing the flashlight around to find the stairs he’s talking about. They’re in the middle of the room, zigzagging up several stories.
I don’t know how long I hesitate before BK radios again. “Do it, or they die. Now.”