Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
He opened the message from Gareth, glancing down at the photo of the white pill bottle he held.
“This is the medication she’s on. Gareth got it from her handbag.” He turned his phone around to show her the image.
Michaela frowned. “According to this bottle, it’s just a light sedative. Something you’d take to get yourself off to sleep.”
“So it wouldn’t make her more docile or blank? Out of it? It wouldn’t cause any sort of memory loss?”
“Not unless she was taking high doses of it. Could she have been abusing them?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have thought so. Lily usually likes to follow the rules.”
“I think we should get the pills tested, just to make sure that what’s in the bottle is the same as what is written on the outside.”
He nodded. “Do you have somewhere we can do that safely?”
“Yeah, I do. But it might take a few days.”
“Make it happen.”
After she left, he called Gareth and told him to drop off a sample of the pills to Michaela’s office.
And then bring the rest, along with Lily’s handbag, to him.
Then he returned to the living room.
Time to make this girl more comfortable.
Lily woke up confused.
Her heart was racing, and she sat up suddenly, glancing around. Where was she? What was going on? What happened?
This wasn’t her bedroom.
Oh no. Oh no. This had happened to her before, where she’d gone to sleep in one place and woke up in another, with no idea of how she’d gotten there.
And she hated that.
She’d detested that feeling of having lost a period of time. Of having no idea what had been done to her or how she’d gotten here.
Find somewhere to hide, Lily.
No, no. What she should do is find her pills. They’d calm her down. She needed to be calm right now. Otherwise, they might come for her with a needle.
Wait . . . who would come at her with a needle?
Lily looked around. This bed was comfortable and huge. The walls of this bedroom were painted a soft gray and the high ceiling was made of wood. Where was she?
Think, Lily. Think.
Bits and pieces of memory came back to her.
And she realized exactly where she was. In the cabin in the woods.
With Harvey.
Because the wedding to Rick had been called off.
A sigh of relief escaped her before she could stop it. The wedding to Rick was off. She didn’t have to marry that mean, selfish asshole.
Lily drew her legs up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Why was she here?
Why did Harvey want her?
You’re useless. You have no skills. You’ve never had a proper job. And you’re sick.
Lily needed her pills.
Deep breaths.
Before she did anything else, she had to find a bathroom. Urgently.
As she pulled the blankets off the bed, she noticed the bandages on her hands.
What had happened?
Her breathing started to quicken in shock. It brought up memories of when she’d woken up after losing moments in time to find that she had strange bandages and bruises that hadn’t been there before. She turned her arms over so she could see her inner elbows.
There it was.
A bandage on the inside of her right arm.
Just a small one, but as she peeled it back, it was clear she’d had blood taken.
Her breathing grew faster and faster as she broke out in a cold sweat.
Someone had taken blood from her. What else had they taken? What else had they done?
She stood on shaky legs and glanced around. Ouch. She had to get out. She dismissed her last disastrous escape attempt as she rushed over toward the double doors to her left.
Immediately, the sound of an alarm went off.
She froze, crouching with her arms over her ears. It was all too much. She couldn’t cope.
Make it stop. Please, make it stop.
As soon as the alarm went off, he knew what had happened.
He was in the kitchen preparing a light dinner. He’d planned to wake her up as soon as it was ready. He hadn’t liked Michaela’s comment that she looked thin. So he didn’t want her missing another meal.
Turning off the stove, he rushed up the stairs to the bedroom. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her, but she’d seemed like she was in a really deep sleep.
When he ran into the bedroom, he came to a sudden stop as he saw she wasn’t in the bed. She couldn’t have gotten outside as all of the doors and windows were centrally locked. He’d done that when he’d carried her back from her earlier attempt to escape.
They could only be unlocked by him.
But it still caused him a moment of surprise and worry.
Then he heard a whimpering noise above the screaming alarm. Shit, he needed to turn that off.
Pulling out his phone, he brought up the app and turned off the alarm. Then he moved around the other side of the bed to find her by the window.