Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
So Ferryn had brought the file to the file room, to the file cabinet. Where she had promptly propped it open on an open file drawer and read through it.
34691.
Also known as Holden Ryker. The most badass of names, if you asked her. And she was always a big fan of unique names.
The file itself had little tidbits of information from back in Holden's military days. He hit the service the week of his eighteenth birthday, went in, and seemingly disappeared.
Black Ops was scribbled next to that.
Ferryn was pretty sure at that point that she knew enough about the military to understand some of the very unsavory things that went down in those types of operations. And the kind of people it took to be able to make a living carrying out those orders.
There were various articles pinned in the file, work of the hackers or researchers at Hailstorm, people who had seemed to trace Holden's footsteps all around the globe, pinning certain events on him. Educated guesses, surely, because there was no way one man could do as much damage as the articles suggested.
Of course, she had been very, very naive then.
In those days back before she met him.
She remembered seeing his address as some place in upstate New York, only cataloging that to memory because she thought it was such an odd place for a man like him. Then she had put the file away. And had promptly forgotten all about him.
Until she was on the bus ride away from her old life, heading to a new, uncertain one, knowing she would need a teacher for it.
The best one she could find.
The hardest one she could find.
Then there his file was in her mind, clear as the day at least a year before.
34691.
Holden Ryker.
Suddenly, she was certain there had been no guesswork associated with his file, that every single one of those stories and news articles pinned there were there for a reason, that this man actually was that impressive.
And if he was, well, then he would make a pretty great teacher, wouldn't he?
Adrenaline skittered across each nerve ending when she finally made the trek up the hill in the deepest part of a small forest, sure someone in town had been screwing with her because there seemed to be no actual sign of human life in this area at all.
The rain had soaked through her clothes, making them hang heavy, each step feeling more arduous than it should have. Her newly buzzed head felt a lot colder than she could have anticipated, making her momentarily regret the decision to make her best friend buzz it all off before she headed out of town with only a couple possessions and a few hundred dollars to her name.
She'd all but given up hope, half ready to turn around and start the long trip back home, when she'd seen a puff of smoke about half a mile off in the distance.
Smoke could mean a chimney or a grill.
Oh, God, a grill.
She was so hungry.
And tired.
And in pain.
She just needed to get somewhere, eat, and pass out for ten or twelve hours.
At that point, she didn't even care if it wasn't Holden. Anyone with a spare corner she could sleep in and some old porridge she could eat would do. She wasn't even entirely sure what porridge was, but she was hungry enough to find out firsthand.
"Leave."
The voice was more animal than human, she was sure.
As she started to turn, a part of her was maybe even worried she was so exhausted that she was starting to hallucinate a bit.
But then she found her nerve, turned, and there he was.
34691.
Holden Ryker.
The only picture she'd seen of him—the only one that had been in the file—had been of him in full uniform at eighteen years old. Still a strong-looking guy, but nothing like the man in front of her.
This man was a giant. The kind of big that dwarfed all the men she'd grown up around. And not one of them could be called anything less than huge. But this man was a behemoth. They'd likely used him to model the Hulk after.
He was easily six and a half feet, nearly as wide as he was tall with tree limbs for thighs and linebacker shoulders. His head was shaved. His tanned skin deeply scarred up and down his arms and across the backs of his hands. If she wasn't mistaken, there was a nasty one across the front of his throat. But maybe that was just a trick of the light.
This was a man a full-grown grizzly bear would shy away from. A moose would shy away from. A Chihuahua would shy away from. And everyone knew the latter thought they were the most fearsome creatures on the planet Earth.
"H... Hi," she said, choking a bit on her own spit to get the word out as he stood there, towering over her, everything about him seeming just barely able to contain some otherworldly rage.