Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her hands shake slightly. She wraps her arms around herself, defensive, hurting, furious.
“Please don’t do this,” she whispers.
Her voice cracks again on the words, and something in me twists painfully. I know what that crack means. I’ve heard it in other people’s voices. People who endured things they never speak of. People who grew up in cages, even if they had no bars.
I lower my voice. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
She looks away, blinking rapidly. “It feels an awful lot like being trapped.”
The words hit harder than I expect.
I step aside, gesturing for her to follow me down the hallway. To my surprise, she does. We walk for a moment before stopping in front of her room.
“This is the guestroom,” I tell her. “The door locks from the inside. You’re free to go anywhere in the apartment, but I don’t want you leaving.”
She scowls. “So it is a tower.”
“A well-furnished one.”
“That’s not funny.”
I stay silent because I’ve already pushed her too far. She storms into the guestroom without looking back at me. The door slams shut.
For a moment I stand there, staring at the wood, listening to my own heartbeat.
Then I hear the quiet sobs.
I wait a moment, then knock once. “Molly.”
“Go away.”
This woman is the only person alive who would dare tell the Wolf to leave her alone. And she’s the only person alive I would actually listen to. I walk down the hall, giving her distance she probably doesn’t expect. I’m halfway to the stairs when I hear her door open behind me.
“Wait.”
I stop.
She stands there, arms wrapped around her stomach, eyes wet, cheeks flushed. She looks angry and lost and grateful all at once.
“I know you’re trying to help me,” she says. “I know I stumbled into something dangerous and you’re just trying to keep me from getting hurt. Or worse.”
I nod once.
“It doesn’t mean I’m not furious about how you did it,” she adds. “But I understand.”
“Good.”
She hesitates, then looks at the carpet. “Thank you. For offering your protection.”
The words come out grudgingly, but they come, and something warm settles low in my chest.
She lifts her head. “I have a job to do. An important one. When can I go back?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” I tell her honestly.
She stiffens. “What does that mean?”
“It means this won’t be solved overnight.”
“So… a week?”
“Probably not,” I admit.
“A month?”
“Maybe.”
She stares at me, panic swelling behind her eyes.
“I can’t miss the rest of the school year. I can’t. I have responsibilities. I have kids who need me. I have bills. I can’t just disappear.”
“You can if the alternative is being killed.”
Her breath catches sharply. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
She shakes her head rapidly, backing away as if the words physically hit her.
“You can’t do this to me!” she screams again. “You can’t rip my life apart because you think you know better.”
“I don’t think,” I say quietly. “I know.”
8
MOLLY
Iwake up three times that night, my heart pounding, unsure where I am until my eyes adjust to the soft glow of the skyline outside the window. The expanse of lights makes the huge room look even bigger, and the bigger it looks, the smaller I feel.
I miss the closet-sized bedroom in my tiny apartment where the heater always rattles, the pipes make weird noises, and my textbooks are stacked under the window because I don’t have a bookshelf. I miss my crooked thrift-store lamp and the ugly quilt I got at a yard sale, because it reminded me of something I might have wrapped around myself as a kid on a cold night.
This apartment is too perfect, too polished. The sheets are stiff and unused. They smell like fancy detergent, and even though I’m sure the thread count is higher than my salary, I miss my jersey sheets. The worst part is not knowing how long I’ll be trapped in this place. It hasn’t even been twelve hours, and I’m already mourning my life.
I get up and pace the room without even realizing I’m moving. I pace from the window to the door and back again. My footsteps echo. My mind won’t settle. There is a hum under my skin, restless and sharp, as if my body is reminding me that I should be home getting ready for work. It’s maddening.
Worse, I keep pressing my palm to my stomach without realizing it. The tiny life inside me is only the faintest promise, nothing visible, nothing I can feel yet. But I know. I know in a way that sits deep and warm and secret inside my chest.
There is no way I’m going to tell him now. Maybe not ever. I knew he was dangerous, but last night proved that there’s something much more sinister going on. He had men following me, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t even tell him my name, so he must have used my phone number to track me down. Who does that?