Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
The world tilted and I was falling…
My body crashed onto the carpet, the impact forcing the air from my lungs in a painful, soundless rush.
Run. Fight. Save yourself.
The words screamed through my mind as I scrambled to my hands and knees, my fingers frantically brushing the edge of the nightstand.
My gun was there. I needed my gun.
His hand closed around my ankle.
The grip was crushing. His fingers wrapped around my leg like iron bands, and he pulled. I was dragged backward across the carpet, my nightgown riding up.
Wild, senseless fear slithered through my veins, my body almost convulsing with it.
I kicked with my free foot, and my heel caught something hard. It didn’t matter what body part it was; he made a sound that might have been pain, but it was vanished before I could be sure.
I twisted onto my back, both hands gripping his wrist, trying to pry his fingers loose from my ankle. His skin was slick with sweat or blood; I couldn’t tell which, and my fingers kept slipping.
I reached up blindly, and my hand found the lamp on the nightstand.
I swung it.
The ceramic base connected with the side of his head and shattered, and for one terrible, hopeful moment, I thought I had done it. I thought he would drop.
I turned my head to the side, my eyes finding the door. It was right there, just a few feet away. I could make it. I could—
He didn’t drop though. He didn’t stop.
No.
A broken sob escaped me as he kept pulling.
No.
I was on my back now, staring up at him, and I could see his face for the first time. The man who was sent to kill me.
He was younger than I expected, and his eyes were…wrong. Flat. Dead. The eyes of a man who had been trained not to feel anything.
He released my ankle only to lunge forward, both hands coming for my throat again.
NO.
I don’t know where the strength came from. Some desperate, adrenalized part of me that I didn’t know I possessed. My fist connected with the bridge of his nose, and I felt the sickening crunch of cartilage shattering.
A spray of hot blood hit my face.
It was in my eyes, my mouth, coating my lips, staining me with its filth.
He should have stopped.
Any normal person would have stopped. The pain of a broken nose was supposed to be debilitating; it was supposed to send a person reeling. He was supposed to clutch his face and give me the small seconds I needed to run.
But nothing… no amount of pain stopped him.
He didn’t even slow down.
This time, when his hands found my throat again, his grip was absolute. His fingers closed around my neck like a vise, thumbs pressing into the hollow of my throat.
He’d done this before.
My heart hammered at the realization.
He had done this before…
… many times, to many people.
My stomach twisted violently with cold, grotesque horror.
I was just one of those people on his list.
A thin wheeze escaped me, barely a breath as he strangled me with his bare hands.
I clawed at his wrists, desperately… hopelessly.
My nails raked through skin and muscle, but his hands only tightened.
My rib cage curved inward toward my lungs as I fought to breathe, but I couldn’t…
I… couldn’t…
My vision blurred.
I can’t… breathe.
Each slowed pulse sent a fresh wave of terror through my body. Each stuttering beat of my heart was a horrifying, cruel feeling in my chest.
And I did the last thing I could, the last thing my mind begged me to try…
My hands came up and I drove my thumbs into his eyes.
It was the only thing left.
The last desperate act of a body that had run out of options.
I pressed my thumbs deep into the soft tissue of his sockets, feeling the wet resistance of the eyeball beneath.
I pushed harder, twisting, trying to blind him, trying to make him feel something—anything—that would make him stop.
He. Didn’t. Stop.
The wheeze in my throat became a soundless rattle. He wasn’t human; he couldn’t be. Humans felt pain. Humans reacted to pain. This thing was crazed, frenzied, and utterly maniacal.
I was going to… die.
My lungs burned in my chest, my body screaming for oxygen that his hands would not allow.
So, this was what dying felt like.
I was… going to die, right now, on this carpet, in this random hotel room in Lisbon.
My arms grew heavy, my fingers slipping from his eyes, all my strength leaving my muscles. My legs stopped kicking.
I… was… going… to… die.
My eyes closed.
Death was ugly; I couldn’t bear to see it.
My heart slowed.
Death was painful; I couldn’t bear to feel it.
My body surrendered.
Death was soundless; I couldn’t bear to hear it.
My mind succumbed to the inevitable, recognizing with slow cruelty that I had been defeated.
And then the weight was gone.
Wrenched away with a force so violent I barely had time to feel it.