Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
The truth was, I was nervous. Or more like practically scared shitless. But I hoped like hell everything went smoothly. It was some kind of miracle that those people hadn’t come back, and I knew it. Despite everything else wrong, my stomachache hadn’t started up again, but I couldn’t trust that to be enough of a warning sign that something bad was about to happen.
If I had ever needed to keep my shit together, it was now, and I would put one foot in front of the next for a thousand miles if I had to.
And that was how I struggled to my feet too when he finally stood and gave me a serious nod. The man who had joked with me about stinky breath and not talking because of his bad mood was gone. It was time to fucking go.
Gathering all my will, I followed him stiffly to the big, metal door.
He turned to me, dropping his voice. “Wait here. Let me deal with the guards, and I’ll come back.”
I blinked, my chest going instantly tighter than it already was. “Can I come with you?”
He started to shake his head before his gaze swept over my face, maybe sensing my fucking panic at the idea of him leaving me behind. “It’s safer for you to stay,” he explained slowly.
I understood, but I really, really didn’t want to get left. “I’ll stay out of the way. Promise.”
Alexander, The Defender, hesitated, really not looking all that happy about it, but after a second, he nodded reluctantly. “Let me see your wrist. I don’t know what these will do, but I don’t want to risk it.”
I held it out to him. He took it carefully, and in the blink of an eye, I watched his fingers curl a millimeter closer around the band on my wrist. It cracked into three pieces and fell to the floor, and in the time it took me to blink again, he’d ripped the ones on his wrists off and threw them beside mine. Only then did he place his hand in the corner where the door met the frame, and he pushed. The door popped open like it was nothing.
Like taking candy from an ant. Not even a baby, an ant.
Then he reached over, wrapped his fingers around my forearm, and started pulling me behind him.
If he felt the way I started shaking at the thought of being left, he didn’t react.
The hallway was exactly the way I remembered it. Long and straight, reminding me of a storage facility except for the normal-sized doors instead of the big, garage-style ones. My brain had been too busy panicking before, and I hadn’t paid enough attention.
And that’s when I thought about something.
“Psst?”
He turned to look over his shoulder, giving me a hard glare as he let go of my arm to press his index finger to his lips.
I mouthed, Is there anyone else here?
No, he mouthed back instantly.
That was a relief. If I didn’t have him, I would have wanted someone to think of me. To save me.
I was so lucky he was here. This whole situation was so fucked, but it could have been a million times worse, and I was grateful, so damn grateful, even though none of this should have happened.
And it must have been the emotion, or the remnants of being sick, that made me reach out and grab the first thing I could—his pinkie finger. I gave it a light squeeze, half expecting him to shake me off. To ask me if my hand had gotten lost.
He didn’t.
All he did was turn and lead us forward. He didn’t make a single peep even on those big, bare feet. I hadn’t noticed or processed until now that he didn’t have shoes.
We moved, going in the same direction they had taken me. Suddenly, he stopped, and I barely managed not to bump into him. The Defender glanced at me over his shoulder and put his index finger against his mouth again.
I nodded.
A lot more gently than I would have expected, he slipped out of my hold, set his hands on my shoulders, and moved me to the side, halfway between two doors. He gestured for me to stay where I was, and I nodded again. Cover your ears and don’t move, he mouthed.
I gave him a thumbs-up, wondering what the hell was about to happen, then put my palms over my ears.
He pressed those same big hands against what seemed like a heavy door and pushed it.
I was too far off to the side to see what was in there, who was in there, but one second he was there, and in the next he was inside.
A loud crack made me flinch a moment before the wall by my shoulder shook. There was a thud and an even louder crack that had me jerking in place. He was fine. He had to be fine. Maybe a minute later, the door opened and Alex came out, a backpack over his shoulder. I dropped my hands.