Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spits, trying to steal the knife from my hand.
“No, no, no!” I scream, holding on to it for dear life. “That’s my father’s knife!”
“She fucking cut me!” the guy I hurt yells. “How about we teach her a fucking lesson for that, boys?”
“Oh, now we’re talking,” another guy says, and he steps over to me and grips my hair, pulling my head back so tightly I shriek.
“I can’t fucking wait to play with you.”
A car comes veering down the road, tires screeching left and right, headlights blinding me.
“What the f—”
I shut my eyes as it’s headed straight toward us.
“Watch out!”
SCREECH!
A loud thump makes me hold my breath.
Yelps are all around me.
My eyes flash open, but the blinding lights stop me from seeing anything except the damaged metal and leg sticking out from underneath the wheel.
Oh God.
BANG!
I jolt up and down against the ground.
Was that a …
Another shot goes off.
My eyes burst open.
Someone in a hoodie tucks a gun away and pulls out two big knives, slicing into the men one after the other like he’s cutting through butter. With ease, he fights them off, jumping around their attacks, cutting into their flesh instead. Their screams fill the void of the night.
One by one, they all go down, blood spattering all around me, and I close my eyes, waiting for my impending doom.
I can hear the clicking of the metal before it goes off, and I open my eyes to await my final moments.
BANG!
My heart jumps along to the sound.
The guy who was on top of me, holding me down, has a giant hole in his head.
I shove him off me, and he flops onto the road like a sack of potatoes.
But now I’m staring straight into the barrel of a gun.
A puff of smoke appears from beneath a hoodie, and the gun is retracted, replaced by a hand covered in tattoos.
“Get up.”
I can’t even properly process what happened as my legs move on their own, my whole body shaking as I crawl up from the ground.
Unsteady, I fall into him, but he holds on tight.
Two familiar hazel eyes bore a hole into my head when I look up. And for a second, I almost forget how to breathe … until he reminds me.
“Breathe.”
I blow out a single shell-shocked breath. “Caleb? What are you doing here?”
I gaze at the bodies surrounding me, and my knees begin to quake. There’s blood everywhere, on the ground, on his Aston Martin, and even on my dress.
He tucks away his knives.
“Saving your ass,” he replies as he opens the car door. “Now get in.”
“What?” I mutter, utterly lost in the violence that just happened.
“I said get in,” he grunts.
When I don’t respond, he grabs me and shoves me into the passenger’s seat himself. “That wasn’t a fucking question, Crystal. Get in.”
One of the bodies gurgles and groans.
“Wait,” I say, pointing at him. “He’s still alive. We gotta—”
Caleb pulls out a single small knife and throws it at the man, piercing his bone right between his eyes.
“Not anymore.”
The man slumps to the ground.
Another body on top of the pile of bodies he left.
Caleb fishes all the knives out of the dead bodies, wiping them on his hoodie like it means nothing to him. And as he tucks them all away, he marches to my door and shuts it tight, sealing me in silence.
I swallow the lump in my throat when Caleb gets in right next to me.
“Did they hurt you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Good. Next time, you call me.” He slams the door shut. “So I can chop off some fingers before I kill them.”
He starts the car as panic coils around my heart.
Don’t show fear. Don’t ever fucking show it, Crystal.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting us the fuck out of here,” he growls. “I don’t wanna get the cops on my ass.”
I glance at the place he hides his knives. “You killed them.”
“Because they tried to fucking touch you,” he retorts, glaring right back at me. “No one fucking touches you except us.”
He did this for me out of pure possessiveness?
His foot hits the gas, and the car races off.
“Thank you,” I mutter after a while.
There’s a pause. “You’re welcome.”
He’s still looking at me, not just in an angry way, but in a way that almost feels … protective.
I grab my coat and pull it tighter.
“I don’t understand how you were even there to save me?”
“I was watching you,” he retorts.
My eyes widen.
He followed me? The entire night?
“You shouldn’t have gone there,” he adds. “RIVERA clubs are dangerous.”
“I just wanted a night out with my friends, that’s all,” I say.
“It took every ounce of self-control for me not to drag you out of there myself, you hear me?” he says, looking at me sternly.
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say.