Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
"Really? Can I be the prison guard?" Flirting is a lot better than waiting.
He freezes. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why?”
Ghost turns and walks away, heading back to his post.
“Talk to me. I know I touched on something bad. I was just trying to tease you.”
He shakes his head. “Forget about it. I’m on edge tonight.”
“Does it have to do with why you don’t want to sleep with me around? Why you left us the other night?” I trust you. Tex, Riot… and you. You make me feel safe. I don’t mind if you have secrets, but don’t leave me in the dark if I might do or say something that hurts you."
"It’s past and gone," he says with a shake of his head.
"Apparently not."
He lets out a little huff. "I enlisted right out of school. Home was shit, just run of the mill stuff, nothing that would make the paper, so the day I could, I was out."
“Okay, a lot of people have been in the military. Like my dad.” I'm trying to imagine something that will make me think less of him, of the man he is now, the man that's willing to put his life on the line to protect mine, and I'm coming up empty
"Honey, trust me, I’m nothing like your father." He sighs. “I did my four years, but I didn’t fit in well there either. I was good at it, but shit at following the chain of command. Too many forms and regulations. I got out, but civilian life wasn’t any better than I remembered it. That’s when one of my old officers got in touch. You know what’s funny? To this day I don’t know if the group that recruited me was government sanctioned or not. They certainly implied that we were, but at the end of the day, I might’ve been no better than the people Kane is sending our way right now.”
“Wh—what did they recruit you to do?” I put a hand on the door, wanting to touch him and remind him that we aren’t there anymore.
“I was part of a squad of killers. We sometimes worked in teams, mostly solo. Easier to get one man in and out than two or three. I've taken more lives than I'd care to fucking admit, all for the greater good, or so I believed, but that shit eats at you, little by little, until it’s fucking gone. I was already on the edge when an op went bad and I ended up in a cell. You’ll excuse me if I spare you the details, but getting out killed what was left of my humanity."
I don't know what to say to that. Not because it makes me care about him any less, but it's heartbreaking to see how broken he feels. "But you did get out. And now you're using those skills to keep me safe. To keep me from getting hurt."
His laugh is completely devoid of humor. "Not meaning to downplay your life, 'cause I'm gonna make sure no one comes close enough to threaten it, but I don't know that saving one life is gonna make up for all the ones I took."
"It's not a scorecard, and I think you’re amazing.”
“You wouldn’t if you—”
“Shut up. I’ve been a prisoner for ten years. Look at me. I’m not a trained killer. I’m just a girl who some sicko decided to mess with. Do you think that if someone had given me the training and the chance to get out, I wouldn’t have taken it? Do you want to know the names of people Kane employs that I would have stabbed in a second if I knew I could get free? I didn’t need to count sheep to sleep, I could just list them in order from most to least guilty until I fell asleep.” I stand up straight, holding my head high. “So no, I don’t think you’re a monster. I think you became the man you had to be in order to survive.”
“Jessica…”
"I don’t care what you had to do to get out of that cell. It brought you here. To the Outlaw Sons, to Tex, to Riot. To me."
"I'm broken goods, Jessica. I don’t want to worry every night about if you’re gonna roll over in your sleep and then I wake up with your blood on my hands."
“Then we get two beds.”
He snorts, but he also puts his hand through the door and I take it, squeezing tight. "You’re a lot tougher than you look. I saw it in you the first night we met. You looked like a scared little kitten, but you weren’t afraid to hiss. Look, I can’t promise you anything, but maybe when this is all over, we’ll see how things go. I… Fuck. I’ll stay open to the idea, but I can’t do it alone. We’ll talk. You, me, Tex and Riot. I—” He stops, then lets go of my hand as he cocks his head, listening to the little earpiece he's wearing. He's gotten a message from the others. "Shh. Go sit down, look fucking dejected or whatever. Somethings happening."