Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
It all made him huff a short, incredulous laugh.
This was his life now.
He ran the water and splashed it on his face until he felt more awake. He squeezed a stripe of toothpaste onto the damp towel and scrubbed his teeth.
He wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten, but his brain felt wired instead of foggy. Restless. Ready to do something. But he had no idea what.
He toweled off and found the door again, following his footprints back.
Roz’s apartment wasn’t big—he said it was about five hundred, thirty square feet—but it might as well have been a maze with all the unknown angles.
He walked down the hall and into the main room, his bare toes brushing a throw rug that was three steps from the couch, fifteen from the kitchen. The air was warmer there, saltier from the scent of greasy bacon and the pungent tang of coffee that’d brewed too long.
A chair scraped.
“Right here, PK,” Roz said, knocking on his two-seater kitchenette table.
Gage followed the sound until his knee hit the edge of a chair. He gripped the back of it and lowered himself slowly.
“So…after everything that’s happened, I see you’re still praying.”
“Always. Day and night.” Gage said. “I won’t let this test take my faith.”
Roz hummed under his breath.
Gage angled his head toward him. “You remember the first time I prayed for you?”
The silence stretched so long he almost took the question back. It’d been a dark time for his friend.
“Of course I do.” Roz said. “It was your prayer that got me off that ledge, brother.”
“Thank God,” he whispered.
“That was the start of us. Me with my pitchfork and you with your halo.”
Something hard and hollow thumped down in front of him, and a cup of bold roast coffee that jolted him more awake.
He wrapped his hands around the mug, fingering the chips and dents before he muttered, “Thanks.”
The silence in the small apartment wasn’t the comfortable kind.
Gage brought the mug to his lips and took a cautious sip. It singed his tongue, burned down his throat, and settled in his gut like a hot stone.
The coffee was bitter and too robust, the same way Roz used to make it when he had to pull a twelve-hour hustle on the streets.
Gage didn’t call it out, but he picked up an alcohol-laced scent drifting from Roz’s cup.
The quiet stretched.
“What time is it?” He finally asked.
“Almost ten.”
Gage leaned over, inhaled his plate and turned it clockwise.
Eggs there, bacon here, toast on the other side. He took a bite, and despite the char, the chalky eggs hit the spot.
They both ate in silence. Gage didn’t know what else there was to say.
Last night, he’d told Roz all he knew after being taken from the prison infirmary and waking in the facility—the experiments, aggressive doctors, the anxious businessmen who checked in three to four times a week, demanding results.
He confessed to the weird strength, heightened awareness, and experiencing new sounds as sharp as blades forged in fire.
He told him about White Sector, and being strapped to a table like an animal for three months, and the promises of helping those in need instead of finishing his prison time.
But there were still parts he’d avoided. Names he excluded.
Scar.
He had no idea how to explain that extreme coincidence.
Besides, Roz would swear Scar had masterminded the whole thing, and he didn’t need his best friend in revenge mode. He needed him to develop a strategy.
If anyone could help him figure out how to repair the ruins of his life, it was him.
“I think we should find this shady facility and level that motherfucker,” Roz growled. “Find the kidnappers that did this to you, torture the truth outta them, and take their damn eyes before I put ’em six feet under.”
Gage sighed. “Oh yeah? You and what army?”
“I don’t need an army to take down a bunch of old-ass scientists,” Roz said, slamming his fist down on the table.
Gage didn’t flinch.
“Let’s go back. For real. You say the word, and we hit the road within an hour. I ain’t got shit left in Chicago anyway.”
“Don’t you have a job?”
“That bullshit construction gig sucks, but getting paid under the table and not paying taxes has allowed me to stack enough bread to disappear. I can support us for a while, G.”
Gage finished chewing a piece of toast, then muttered, “It doesn’t matter, Roz. I already told you I don’t know where it is. I went in unconscious and came out blind. I only know we were in Virginia, and Virginia’s a big state.”
“What about the guy you said was in there with you?” Roz asked. “The one who helped you escape. Maybe we can find him.”
Gage straightened. No! Absolutely not!
“I don’t know where he is either,” he said, keeping his voice flat. “We got out and split ways. That’s it.”