Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Gideon’s voice was closer, but I didn’t look back. “No, I just meant that Cole sent me down here for wine, too.” Suddenly, he cursed. “Try the door.”
“With pleasure.” I turned the knob and nothing happened. Surprised, I yanked on the door knob, pulling hard. When that yielded no results, I banged on the door.
I rapped my knuckles against the hard wood until it hurt. Then a voice from behind me said, “Don’t bother.”
“What?” Irritation made me whirl around.
Gideon looked the same as always, except perhaps for the dark circles under his eyes. “That’s why the washer and dryer were on. Though it’s probably overkill with how loud the music is.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it? Cole and Brady set this up. They tricked us into coming down here and then locked us in.”
Holy shit.
He was right.
28
LILA
I gasped, turning to bang on the door again, but Gideon was right. No one was going to hear us. When my knuckles hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes, I admitted defeat. Gideon was the last person I wanted to talk to, but I had to ask him one question. “Do you have your phone with you?”
“It's at the bar.” He brushed some dust off the cushion of an ancient leather sofa and sat down. “Do you have yours?”
“It’s upstairs.” Anger grew inside me as he made himself comfortable. “So you’re just going to sit there until we starve to death?”
“It's better than banging on the door until my hands bleed.”
Just to spite him, I pounded on the door again, this time yelling for help. But the music and the laundry were just too loud. Ignoring Gideon, I marched past the sofa he was on, grabbed a wooden chair from a pile and carried it over to the door. I set it a few feet away and sat down, my arms crossed.
“That looks comfy.” Gideon observed while I alternated glaring at him and trying unsuccessfully to ignore him.
I vowed never to speak to him again, but I only managed to make that last five minutes. “Why would they do this to us?”
Gideon snorted scornfully. “Isn’t it obvious? They want us to talk.”
“Oh good.” I shot him a glare. “Were there any incredibly hurtful things you forgot to say last time? Because now’s your chance.”
He returned my glare and then looked off in a different direction.
This was going to be a long night. If I ever got out of here, I was going to channel my aggression toward Gideon and use it to punch their stupid heads in.
After at least twenty minutes of stony silence, Gideon got up and wove through the towers of boxes to the back of the basement. I wondered if he needed to find a corner to pee in. I also wondered if a stack of boxes would topple over and bury him for good.
A girl could hope.
But I heard him rummaging around out of sight for a few minutes. Then he returned a few minutes later with a bottle of wine, a canteen, and a pencil. The assortment was odd enough to make me more curious than pissed.
He sat back on the couch and set the canteen aside. Then he fumbled around with the pencil and the bottle of wine for a while. It looked like he was trying to draw on the cork. Yeah, that was a good use of his time.
“What the hell are you doing?” I finally snapped.
“Someone showed me a party trick in college—how to open a bottle of wine with a pencil.”
“Not possible.” I scoffed as I folded my arms and crossed my legs, staring in the opposite direction. But five minutes later, I heard him make a triumphant noise. I tried to ignore it, but eventually I had to look over there. He’d worked the cork off and was pouring red liquid into the canteen.
I looked away, refusing to glance in his direction until I heard his footsteps. “Do you want the canteen or the bottle?” He held both out.
I didn’t want anything from him. Except… hell, maybe if I got drunk, I could forget who I was trapped here with.
I grabbed the bottle which was the slightly less dusty of the two.
“You’re welcome,” Gideon muttered as he walked back to the couch with the canteen.
I took a long swig of wine and nearly choked. It seemed stronger than the stuff Brady had served upstairs. “What the hell’s your problem?”
Gideon sank down on the couch, took his own drink of wine, and glared right back at me. “My problem? Neither of us would be here right now if you hadn’t randomly decided to be a total bitch toward us all those months ago. Seriously, who does that? Who lashes out at strangers with the sole purpose of bringing them down?”