Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 108709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
All these fucking years, I kept quiet, biding my time until I saw her again, letting the rage build inside of me until I didn’t even recognize the man I had become. All of it based on my belief that the one person who meant anything to me had betrayed me. Hell, I’d even wondered if maybe she had died that night, that everything had happened so fast, and I just didn’t know what I was seeing through the smoke, but I knew that wasn’t true. If she had died, I would have felt it in my bones.
I had assumed she just never came forward. Assumed she was content with allowing me to rot behind bars. Assumed she had reveled in her betrayal.
But maybe she hadn’t.
Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time.
Maybe I’m the one who let her down.
14
STONE
It’s well beyond nightfall as we continue through the thickening woods, walking in companionable silence, both of us deep in thought. I no longer have the overwhelming need to end her life, but that doesn’t mean I trust her. She could be lying. Hell, she’s good at it. I taught her well. But if her story is true, and she has no recollection of her past from before seventeen years old, then I’ve given her more than enough to think about.
Her stomach has been growling for hours. Hell, it’s been that way since we were in the tunnel, but there’s not a lot I can do about that right now.
My top priority is getting us somewhere safe, far away from anyone who’s going to hunt me down. Then once we get through this bushland and find a small town, we can focus on stocking up on everything we might need. Until then, we’re living off the land.
Growing up the way I did, this isn’t exactly my first time being on the run from the cops. It’s definitely the first time it’s been at this magnitude. It’s not even the first time Menace has been on the run. Though I suppose she has no fucking clue about that, meaning she probably also doesn’t recall all the tough lessons that shit taught us.
The thought of her accident has my gaze shifting toward her. Her stare is focused heavily on the uneven ground beneath her feet. It’s almost pitch black out here, the moon being our only guiding light. She’s struggling, and judging by the way her arms are wrapped around her body, she’s starting to get cold.
I had every intention of walking through the night. It won’t be long until the guards figure out how I escaped, and that I did so with a hostage. When they discover that sewer line, it’s going to lead them directly into the very woods that we’re in. When that happens, we can’t be here. But I also can’t keep punishing her like this. She didn’t ask for this, and if she is being honest, then she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, having no fucking idea of the history she held with the man she came to interview.
Fuck.
Clenching my jaw, I give in to the inner turmoil. “We can stop here,” I murmur.
Her head snaps up, her eyes going wide as though barely believing my words. “Oh, thank God,” she says, heavily collapsing against a big tree before dropping right down to her ass. She sits against the trunk, bracing her elbows against her knees as she hangs her head, closing her eyes as the exhaustion of the day quickly catches up to her.
As she rests, I take a few more steps before pausing and looking out at the vast bushland ahead of us. We still have who knows how fucking long ahead of us, but if we can rest for a few hours, we should be good to continue at a better pace and cover more ground.
“Do you know how to make a fire?” she asks.
I look back to find Aria scrounging through the fallen foliage around her, picking out a bunch of sticks. “No.”
“Shit,” she sighs. “Damn. I think all you have to do is rub them together. It couldn’t be that hard, right? If cavemen could do it, surely we can figure it out.”
“I know how to start a fire. What I meant was no, we can’t. It’s too risky,” I explain. “You might as well shoot up a flare telling every fucker within a hundred-mile radius exactly where we are.”
Aria groans and tosses her little collection of sticks aside before leaning back against the tree once again, tipping her head back and staring up at the starry night above. “We?” she questions. “There’s no we about this. This is all on you. You’re an escaped prisoner, and I am nothing more than a poor hostage that’s been dragged into your bullshit, so excuse me for not really caring if a swarm of cops close in on us and get me the fuck out of here.”