Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I know there hasn’t been any mistake at all. No matter how badly I want it to be, I know this isn’t a mix-up. I know he isn’t Bo Porter. He’s a Grayson.
His eyes are as dark as they were yesterday, but now I can picture them glittering in the night, as if they belong to a wild animal, a predator evolved to see in the pitch-black. His jaw is still as stubbled as yesterday—maybe more so—but today I think the growth could be as sharp as the blade still inches away from my face. His cheekbones are high and peaked just like they were at the café, but today they look like dangerous cliffs that you could fall off of and plunge to your death.
God, he’s a death trap, isn’t he?
His entire body. His face.
But nothing—not even the pain of death—could diminish one thing about his beauty. If anything, now that I know who he is, it all makes sense. Why I felt so afraid. Why he looked so threatening. Why his beauty felt heartbreaking. Because it is.
But what was he doing at the café? How did he know to be there? How did he know to order those things for me, that I only told Bo about? How…
“How do you feel?” he asks, leaning against the dresser now.
My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth, but somehow I unglue it. Pressing myself to the door, I say, “You… you d-drugged me?”
He roves those predator eyes over my face. “Had to.”
I dig my nails into the door. “H-had to?”
“Couldn’t have you screaming when I put you in the trunk of my car.”
His words cause a massive shiver to go through my body, making the rope burns on my wrists tingle. I have to drag in a shaky breath so I can keep talking: “What… what is this place?”
His eyes are boring into mine, his features blank. “A hunting cabin.”
“Did you”—I take in another shaky breath—“k-kill them?”
“Kill who?”
“These animals,” I answer, not taking my eyes off him. “The heads. Did you…”
No expression passes over his face at my question. “Most o’ them.”
For this next question, instead of the door wood, I dig my nails into my thighs. “Did you… kill…” I close my eyes for a second. “Did you kill him? Did you k-kill Bo?”
Again, nothing flickers through his features. They are cool and aloof as he replies, “No.”
A breath escapes me.
Probably the first one since I came to that’s not been broken or choppy.
I open my fists and press my sweaty palms to my thighs. “So then, he’s… okay? You didn’t… You didn’t hurt him? You didn’t—”
“There’s no Bo,” he says, cutting me off.
Since we started this conversation face-to-face, this is the only time his features have changed. There’s an expression lurking there that I can’t name for sure, but it looks akin to… irritation, with lines around his mouth and his eyes clenched tight.
“What?” I breathe out.
His jaw clenches for a second. “The man you’re getting so bent out of shape about doesn’t exist.” Then, “Or rather, he does but he doesn’t care that you do. So you should probably save your concern.”
“What? What does that m-mean?”
“It means he sold you out.”
I go back to holding on to the door, my nails digging into the wood. As if bracing for something, something big and life-changing, as he speaks. “Bo Porter, the guy you think is your little boyfriend and who you thought would be a safe choice because of his drug bust, is a fuckin’ junkie. It’s hard to score coke when you’re on the inside. Can’t do it without some serious help. He knew I could provide him that help. Usually I don’t like to give people like him the time of day, but fortunately for him, he came into possession of something that he knew I’d want.”
My legs are sliding against each other, sweaty and sticky. My palms are slipping along the door, but somehow I hold myself up and parrot, “Something you’d want.”
He dips his chin. “Your letter.”
“My…”
“The very first one.” Then, with his jaw pulsing, he goes on, “So you see, you really wouldn’t wanna meet a junkie in a back alley. Because he’ll sell you out for a bag of coke while you’re standin’ there with your pretty little mouth open and your eyes wide in shock, ready to pass out at the betrayal.”
That’s what I look like right now, I think.
He just described me.
He forgot to mention, though, how I’m shaking right now. How my sweaty limbs are about to buckle under the pressure of what he just revealed. How I’m about to all but collapse. And not just from the betrayal but from something else I just now realized.
It was always there, in the back of my mind, hovering. I refused to acknowledge it. I refused to think about it because I wanted to be smart. I didn’t want to be like my mother, who fell in love with a man who was wrong for her. But I can’t deny it anymore.