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)
I heard the revving.
And, again, I thought nothing of it.
We lived on a really rural street occupied by mostly older people who went to bed with the sunset. So a lot of times, idiot kids would race their cars down the street, knowing they would get the race over with and be gone before the elderly people managed to get out of bed and call the police.
So while, for a second, I did think of grabbing Triss and pulling her into the backyard in case someone flew up onto our front yard or something, I wasn’t immediately worried about anything.
I heard it rather than saw anything at first.
The rev.
Then a bam.
The crunch of metal.
A sickening thud.
My gaze shot over, watching a man rolling around on the street, thrown from his bike.
His clothing was torn, bloody skin exposed through the rips.
“Hey!” Triss screamed, tearing my gaze away from the man, following hers to the car that was revving up once again.
Almost like… like it was going to… run the man over?
I tried to reach for Triss, but she was a force when she was pissed, when she had a mission in mind.
And, clearly, she did.
Because she was still screaming as she rushed forward across the lawn, stooping down, grabbing one of my garden gnomes—in particular Gnomio, one of my favorites—and chucking the ceramic thing straight at the car as she screamed.
I watched almost in slow motion as the windshield cracked, little webs splintering out.
In my mind, I was assaulted by a million horrific scenarios involving guns or knives or being crushed under tires.
Somehow, though, I found myself moving even as Triss grabbed another gnome—Sherlock Gnomes—from a garden bed.
I wasn’t moving toward her, though. I was moving toward the thrown biker.
It must have been his haggard breathing, his little groans of pain, that had me subconsciously heading in his direction.
I was close enough to finally touch him when I heard it again.
A rev.
I really wasn’t thinking right then.
I just reached down, grabbed the man under his shoulders, and started dragging.
I wasn’t exactly a strong woman, so he was barely budging.
But then Triss was at my side, reaching for him as well. And with a lot of grunting and hissing, we yanked him up onto the front lawn.
So unless the car wanted to jump the curb, and run us over too, we were probably safe.
But, for good measure, Triss just started screaming her freaking head off, trying to alert the nearly deaf neighbors.
The driver must not have known the age of the neighbors, though. Because they spooked. Then peeled off.
It was the first time I managed to take a breath, to feel my stomach unclench.
“What the fuck?” Triss hissed, looking at me over the body of the injured biker.
But I couldn’t focus on that.
My gaze dipped, taking in the blood. God, so much blood.
Triss’s gaze followed mine, and I watched as her eyes widened. At first, I thought it was because of the injuries as well.
But then she looked over at me again and it was undiluted worry in her eyes.
“Holy shit, Maeve,” she hissed.
“What?”
“He’s a Henchmen,” she said.
My gaze shot down, looking at him with fresh eyes.
The handsome face. The beard. The dark, pained gray eyes.
I’d written about him.
I’d just never, you know, seen him with my own two eyes.
“This is Donovan,” Triss explained.
Suddenly, Triss’s Holy shit seemed really, really appropriate.
CHAPTER THREE
Maeve
“Okay. What do we do? What do we do?” Triss said, speaking mostly to herself.
“Call the police,” I said immediately, eyes going wide.
I mean, the man had been run over.
“No cops!” Triss said, and it was so much like a cheesy TV show that I almost laughed.
“No cops,” Donovan rumbled back, voice tight, in pain. “Phone,” he barked out.
“Where? On you?” Triss asked, patting down his pockets.
“Bike,” he said.
“Right,” Triss agreed, hopping up, and rushing over toward his mangled bike.
“You need to see a doctor,” I told him, not risking another look down, because I felt like I was going to be sick with just the smell—metallic, coppery—of his blood.
“I will,” he hissed, trying to push up, then falling flat again with a string of curses.
“Please stay still,” I begged, placing a hand softly on his shoulder.
His gaze lifted to mine then, hazy with pain, but pinning me for one long moment. And I swear I felt stripped down, like he could see under my clothes. Like he could see even beneath that. To my heart. My soul.
God, that was ridiculous.
The man was in severe pain. He was probably in shock. He wasn’t looking at me and seeing my damn soul.
I needed to get a grip.
Get focused.
Like Triss.
“Yes!” she hissed, waving an intact-looking cell phone up in the air before running back. “Who am I looking for? President? Is it under a code name?” she asked.
“Huck,” Donovan said, making Triss roll her eyes. Whether that was a ‘Oh, duh, I should have known that’ eye roll, or a ‘God, that is so predictable’ eye roll was anyone’s guess.