Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
She ran in the direction of the cry, down the hall and around the corner. The next corridor veered into a part of Area Three she rarely ventured.
Doors led to closets and maintenance rooms housing electrical boxes and machinery that kept the prison operational. No one wandered into this area unless something was broken.
At the next turn in the corridor, she stopped.
Up ahead was a door to another maintenance room. Only this one stood slightly ajar. The broken chain on the hinge must have swung, preventing it from closing all the way.
Pain throbbed in her molars from clenching her jaw, and the strength in her legs threatened to abandon her. The instinct to turn back and run straight to Martin and Ricky made her tremble uncontrollably. But she couldn’t leave.
One of the inmates was hurting that child.
She didn’t make a sound as she approached the door. She had no weapons, no fighting skills, and her muscles were so taut with fear she could barely move one foot in front of the other.
This might’ve been the stupidest thing she’d ever done, but she didn’t intend to enter that room. She was just going to put her ear there and listen.
She reached the opening with a painful knot in her stomach. Her teeth chattered, and her entire body coiled to spring at the smallest sound.
Holding her breath, she leaned in.
Silence.
She strained her hearing, her gaze darting behind her every second, as she tried to listen over her thundering heart.
A distant footstep drifted from behind the door, then another, followed by the heaving of breaths. Grunting. Panting. The sound of metal scraping against concrete.
All the heat in her face rushed to her feet. None of those noises should be associated with a child.
She looked back down the hall, the impulse to run pulling through her with eye-watering force.
Turning back, she touched the door and gave it the smallest push. The hinges didn’t squeak. She pushed again, giving her enough room to wriggle in.
A maze of sewer pipes greeted her. Narrow and long, short and wide, they stacked in various sizes and rows and ran the length of the vast dark space. Some connected at joints and elbows. Others vanished into the ceiling and floor. Most of the pipes were the width of her body.
The sounds of grunting drew her toward a large pipe that ran parallel with the ground. Ducking behind it, she followed it around a bend toward the noise.
The beam of a flashlight shone through the plumbing, aimed at something twenty feet away. She couldn’t see through all the pipes that separated her from whatever was breathing on the other side.
But there was a gap underneath.
Her hands slicked with sweat as she lowered to her knees. Chills gripped her spine and crawled over her scalp. She was so fucking scared.
Breathing silently through it, she dipped her head beneath the lowest pipe and stared across the floor to the other side.
Her heart stopped, and her mind fractured in horror, refusing to accept what her eyes couldn’t look away from.
Long dark hair floated in a puddle of red. A tiny mouth hung open in a soundless scream, and glassy dead eyes stared right at her.
Bile hit her tongue, and her insides filled with blistering poison.
Only the upper half of the little girl was in view. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen as she lay dead and nude in the blood that poured from her torn-out throat.
Tula was too late. Devastation reared up in her chest, crushing her heart.
Who had done this? How could someone kill a child?
The body jerked, followed by a grunt.
No, no, no.
The body rocked again, and again, being pushed by something she couldn’t see.
Tremors wracked her limbs as she crawled alongside the pipe until the rest of the child came into view.
A man knelt between lifeless legs.
Rutting.
Raping.
Fucking the dead body.
Saliva rushed over her tongue. Vomit rose, and tears hit her eyes in a combustion of horror and fury. She clapped her hands over her mouth to silence the scream clawing in her throat.
She knew that slim, masculine frame. Knew the linen pants he wore. Knew how soft that thin cardigan felt beneath her hands when she danced with him.
Everything her mother had said about Hector La Rocha was true.
Only this was worse. So fucking worse.
He wasn’t alone. Someone stood behind him, holding the flashlight. Watching. Allowing this despicable, gut-wrenching thing to happen.
The overpowering and agonizing feeling of terror, shock, dread, and revulsion incapacitated her. The utter fear of being caught by him immobilized her lungs, her legs, and the blood in her veins. She was afraid to breathe, petrified to make a sound.
The girl was gone. Dead. There was nothing she could do. She needed to get out of there. If he saw her…
The godawful groaning sounds of him finishing sent her scrambling backward in a flailing of arms and legs. She landed on her back, her clammy hands pressed to her mouth and nose, held in a frozen state of hell, and praying they hadn’t heard her.