Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 100470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Our home. Our family. Our freedom.
We’ve been forced on a trip from hell with people we hate.
With each step we take, we lose hope of ever making our way back home again.
These people have a wicked agenda.
We are their prey.
They’re brutal and cold.
Every person in their group has twisted delusions.
I need for my other brothers to rescue us and release us from our prison.
As time quickly passes, I realize no one is coming for us.
The only way we’ll escape is if we save ourselves.
I’ll have to be smart and calculating.
The timing needs to be just right.
When we make our great escape, I’ll finally be at liberty to explore the feelings I have for my brothers. Love, so pure and innocent, can’t be a bad thing.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
This can’t be real.
Orange and yellow flames lick up high above the treetops, and thick smoke billows all around as I watch my home burn to the ground.
Are they safe?
Are there survivors?
Destiny coughs until she gags but otherwise remains quiet. She’s on the other side of Sadie, who’s sobbing uncontrollably next to me in the bed of Wild’s truck. I would console her, but my hands are bound behind my back.
This is a nightmare.
One I can’t seem to wake from.
To my left, Ronan is out cold and closest to the tailgate. Blood trickles from a blow he received to his head when he fought back. He’s missing his glasses. I’ve never seen him so wrecked.
Tears, caused by the horrible situation I’ve found myself in, or the thickening smoke, blind me even further. I want to scream at our captors for doing this to my family, but something is tied around my head, holding a sock or some other material in my mouth.
Is everyone dead?
Mya climbs into the bed of the truck and sneers at me as she sits directly across from me. If I weren’t crudely tied up, I’d take a swing at her ugly face. Since I can’t use my fists, I level her with a glare that promises pain and lots of it.
Voices can be heard from beyond the snapping and crackling of the fire that’s quickly consuming my home with my family in it on the other side of the fence.
Is it Mom? Dad?
The voices belong to CJ and Mya’s parents, Owen and Tee. Tee’s carrying a small child bundled in her arms and Owen has a larger one folded over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He climbs into the back and settles on Mya’s right while positioning the child in between them. When terrified eyes meet mine, I recognize them immediately.
Dakota.
Oh God. He’s alive.
He wails at seeing me, reaching his small hand toward me, but I’m unable to help him. Mya gives him a smack on the arm, hissing something harsh and cruel that has him cowering.
I hate her.
I want to watch her suffer.
Tee shuffles in the truck bed until she’s on Owen’s other side. Declan clings to her but keeps his eyes on his older brother who’s sobbing.
Where’re Mom and Dad and Dawson?
If I weren’t ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and then quickly subdued by rope, I’d just think these people were saving us from a house fire. But I’ve quickly put together that they’re the reason for the fire.
Someone sobs, the sounds growing closer as they approach. Stacey, the hugely pregnant lady who wormed herself into our home, clutches her belly and holds on to her husband, Michael’s arm.
Does she feel sick about what they’ve done to us?
I knew she was bad news, but Mom didn’t listen.
I notice the blood all over Stacey’s shirt that’s stretched over her pregnant belly, slices going every which way like she got in a fight with a bear. Satisfaction spreads through me like a toxic infection. Seeing her blood brings me pleasure.
I want to see them all bleed.
“I’m sorry,” Michael croons. “We tried. Now get up front and let’s see to those wounds. You’re lucky she didn’t stab you in the stomach.”
She.
Mom?
“I hope you die,” I croak out in a raspy, smoke-choked voice around the sock, sending Stacey a blast of my hatred with my expression. I’m not even sure she can hear me.
Stacey stops and glowers at me. “She should have given him to me. At least he wouldn’t have burned to death.” She covers her mouth with a bloodstained hand. “What kind of mother would rather her child die a horrible death in her arms than let another mother protect him?”
Bile burns up my esophagus as her words click inside my mind. Stacey tried to take Dawson, but Mom put up a fight, refusing to give over her baby. And now, Mom and Dawson are probably dead from the fire. More tears well and spill over.
Oh God. I can’t breathe!
My mother. My brother.
These people are monsters!
As the smoke grows thicker, we all start to cough more. Michael climbs into the front of the truck and starts the engine. Is he leaving? What about the rest of their people?
“Where is she?” Lisa, one of the other women from their group calls out. “Stacey, hon? Are you okay? Seth said you lost the baby.”
Not her baby.
Ours.
My baby brother, Dawson.
Good for you, Mom.
“In the truck,” Tee calls out. “She’s in bad shape. You should look after her up there. Have Seth bring your kids to me and Owen.”
Lisa disappears and then a few moments later shows back up with five kids all varying from around Dakota’s age to Destiny’s. The sleepy kids find places to insert themselves between tents, gear, and the rest of the people crammed in the bed of the truck.