Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
With the cuffs on.
I could probably drive a car pretty easily with them. Unless it was a stick. And it was probably a stick. Serious car people didn’t really drive automatics, did they?
I mean, I didn’t know how to drive a stick… period. So that was probably more of an issue than the cuffs.
“What are you doing? In,” a voice barked from behind me, making me jolt then reach for the door knob and head inside.
It was… unexpected.
I mean, not that anyone knew what to expect of the cabin of a kidnapper in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades.
But it was both surprisingly homey, yet quite bare.
The walls were log, so there wasn’t much to them, save for some nails hammered in here and there to hold various items. Most of said items were keys or, well, weapons. Knives, mostly. Some of them antique-looking, and I figured that maybe they had been around before my kidnapper had moved on in.
At least I knew there were plenty of stabby items around, should I be able to rush to get one.
There was a small kitchen butted up against one wall. Just an ancient fridge, a countertop burner, and a sink with some overhead cabinetry for dishes and food storage.
A small table with two chairs was placed close to that, the wood scratched and warped slightly with age and dampness.
Completely against the cabin, butted up against two walls with a window overlooking the water in the back, was a full-sized bed with mussed sheets.
In the center of the room was an old couch in a striped olive, brick red, mustard yellow, and navy blue pattern.
There were books on the coffee table in front of it. Judging by the spines that were visible, they were all nonfiction. All survival or weapons or crime based.
Interesting, yet not surprising.
I mean, it looked like she lived kind of off-grid. Maybe there were solar panels on the back roof or something. Clearly, there was something to power the fridge and range with.
And, also, she had an interest in crime.
Still, it was something that humbled her to me even more. A reader. Even if we didn’t enjoy the same things, we got something from the same hobby.
Beyond the living area was a tiny closed-off room that must have been a bathroom, but I had no idea how plumbing would work with a house like this. Compost toilet, perhaps? One of those showers that used water catchment and then drained back into the water below?
I almost wanted to ask.
But it hardly seemed appropriate, given the situation.
There were other little human touches around too. A hairbrush on the nightstand beside the bed. A bra casually tossed over the bed’s footboard. A plant on a windowsill. Aloe. A big, healthy aloe plant too. Maybe she kept it around because of its usefulness, since everything else around seemed to have practical uses.
“Sit,” she demanded, waving toward the couch, but I moved toward the kitchen table instead, figuring it was close to the drawers. And that maybe those drawers had knives or forks in them.
More stabby items.
I was kind of hoping for blunt. I thought I could stomach that better. But in this case, beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers.
I sat as instructed, and pretended not to be watching the woman too closely as she walked across the room, reaching for a jaw clip, and getting her hair off of her neck.
Finding the silence almost as intolerable as the heat in this un-air-conditioned home, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from blurting out, “Did you kill Alaric?”
“Did I kill who?” she asked, face scrunched up. “Oh, the blond,” she said, then waved at her face. “The pretty boy.”
“Yes, him.” I wanted to say that he was more than a pretty face and a nice body, that he was kind and thoughtful, but also struggling with his own insecurities and uncertainties in life, which clearly endeared me to him all the more.
“No. Not kill. Maim. A little,” she said, shrugging. “He pulled the gun first. What choice was there?”
I bit back the sarcastic reply that came to me then, knowing it wasn’t going to help to get snarky with my kidnapper.
But, at least, I knew Alaric was okay. I mean, I had no reason to trust what she said. The matter-of-fact way she’d said it, though, made me think she was telling the truth.
It actually would have served her better to tell me that, yes, he was dead. Instilling fear was a powerful tool to keep people compliant. It was why all the worst dictators in history did it.
What the heck was going on here?
“Why did you take me?” I asked, wanting to see what she would say, what lies she might make up.
In the end, though, what she gave me was the truth.
“Because he will come for you.”