Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“You know what they say about missing persons?” No didn’t wait for an answer. “They say most people who get lost more than three days? Seventy-two hours? They’re rarely found alive...if ever.”
“But y-you’re still alive,” I pointed out, more desperately than I wanted. Inside me, panic was gradually taking the form of a monstrous little girl, tittering as she came close. I hated how contrary my imagination could be, making Helios impossible to see while my nightmares were all too vivid.
Panic came closer and closer, but I pushed her away. She fell back, still tittering.
“Am I?” No chuckled, but this was the first time something he did made me feel skittish and uneasy.
“Are you saying you’re a ghost?” I scoffed, but my voice sounded even thinner and more desperate than before. I wanted to call out for Helios, but I didn’t, telling myself that Helios was right. I had to be strong while waiting for him.
“Mm-hmm...”
“Stop it,” I said sharply.
“I’m good at counting hours, even in the dark. Do you know that?” he asked in a singsong voice. “He taught me.”
“Stop it, No. I mean it.” I didn’t know what got into No, but I didn’t like this psychotic side of him. Had he finally snapped? Had it made him forget that victims had to stick together?
“You know how long you’ve been here?”
“No—” But I wasn’t sure if I was saying his name or if I wanted him to shut up.
“Seventy-one hours.” He started to laugh, and in the background I swore I could hear Panic tittering with him.
I shook my head furiously. My hair swatted my face and my lips with each vigorous shake, but I kept shaking my head because it was the only way to keep Panic from licking me all over.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered fiercely.
“Doesn’t matter what?” No was taunting me. Why?
“Doesn’t matter how long I’m here! He’ll find me!”
“No one will find you—”
“Yes, he will—”
“No, no, no,” he sang, and Panic sang along with him.
“Yes,” I shouted. “He’ll find me! Because Helios loves me—”
He answered in his singsong voice, “Who’s Helios? I don’t know no Helios. Helios made a fool of us all—”
“He’s Helios Andreadis, the President of the Afxisi—”
Lights suddenly switched on, blazingly bright, blinding me for a second. For a second, I was terrifyingly disoriented, feeling like I had been transplanted from a dungeon to the operating ward of an asylum.
Something rattled, the sound of chains being yanked down, and when I forced myself to look towards the sound, I saw a man calmly releasing himself from his restraints.
“No?”
The man glanced at me—
One eye pulled down by sunken skin, the other half turned into a maze of scars, and sneering, drooling lips.
“My name is Manolito Chavez, MJ. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, my dear. Your strength has amazed me all this time, but I knew there had to be a reason for it. You thought someone would come after you, didn’t you?”
The lips folded into a smile, making the face more grotesque. But what really made me want to throw up was the look in his eyes. He wanted to devour me, bit by bit, and he wanted me to cry with every inch he ate.
Something told me that my flesh wouldn’t be the first this man’s tasted, literally.
“And who knows? Perhaps he might have succeeded. But now that I know his name, I know what to look for. I know who to hide you from. I’m sorry to say, my dear, he will never find you again.”
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I screamed the word inside my mind. I would rather die than let him know how much he had me terrified. I tried to summon Helios, but it seemed even his image, his voice, was blocked from my mind.
NO, NO, NO!
This time, I knew I wasn’t saying his name.
This time, I knew there was no escape.
Swish.
Chapter One
“I THINK I’D HAVE KILLED you again if I had found you dead, Rick.”
Rick swallowed, knowing that every word spoken by the man framed on the doorway was true. He was more than a few years younger than Rick, but only the greatest fool on Earth would let something like age make him think Helios Andreadis was harmless. At sixteen, Helios had turned his back on his inheritance and moved halfway across the world to build his own billion-dollar underground racing club. That was the least of his achievements.
Standing six-foot-seven, golden haired, and with striking leonine eyes, Helios was often compared to the sun god. It should have been a comforting analogy, but the younger man’s cold hard visage reminded Rick that suns could just as easily burn people alive with its heat and, in some cases, destroy entire planets and galaxies.
“President,” Kellion Argyros murmured. “Maybe we can let Rick lower his hands first and have a peaceful discussion?” Normally, the VP of Afxisi would have a wickedly charming smile playing on his handsome face, but not now. It had been almost three days to the second since they discovered MJ had been abducted, and they had been on the road since then.