Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help being worried about her, though. What if she tried something? Grabbed a knife from the butcher block in the kitchen and went after the big dark thug who had gone in the house with her? What if he killed her? Shot her the way the bearded man had shot my Dad?
Christopher must have seen the worry on my face, because he tried to reassure me.
“Hey—don’t worry, uh—what’s your name?”
“Zoe,” I said unwillingly.
“Zoe—right. Well, don’t worry Zoe—Gabriel won’t hurt your mom. We’re under strict orders to keep the two of you safe all the way back to the Compound.”
“Where’s the Compound?” I demanded. “Where are you taking us? What do you want with us?”
“It’s your mom, my father wants, I think,” Christopher said, not answering my other questions. “It’s her Royal blood—he’s been looking for her for a long time.”
“Royal blood?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
But just then my mom came back, accompanied by Gabriel, who was still keeping a watchful eye on her. She had a single backpack with her and she climbed back into the back of the van with me without any complaints.
“All right,” she said, settling beside me. “We’re ready to go.”
Then the doors slammed, shutting us in and we began our journey.
“Mom,” I whispered, when I was sure the thugs up front weren’t listening. “Where are they taking us? What is this all about?”
Mom gripped my hands in hers and looked intently into my eyes.
“You have to be strong, Zoe. I know you miss your Dad—I’m going to miss him, too. Dave was a good man.” Her eyes were filled with tears which belied her calm words. They trickled down her cheeks as she spoke.
“But Mom—why do they want us? Why do they want you? That one guy said something about you being Royal? Does Norway even have a Royal family, still?”
“Norway?” She looked confused for a moment, then her face cleared. “No, honey—that’s not what they’re talking about.”
“Then what are they talking about?” I demanded.
But my mom only shook her head.
“You don’t have to worry about it, I promise. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep Esteban happy so—”
“Keep him happy? He shot Dad!” I exclaimed, causing the two in the front to turn their heads.
“Shhh!” My mom hushed me and shook her head, her eyes wide.
My hands were clenched into fists in my lap. Later on when we finally got to the Compound, I would cry. When I found myself in the arid landscape of Arizona, so different from the rolling green foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains where I had grown up, I would let myself mourn my father and weep for his loss. But at that moment, all I felt was rage for the bastards who had taken him from us—and anger at my mother for wanting to placate them instead of planning to run away.
“Listen to me, Zoe,” she said softly. “Look at me. Yes, I’m going to try to keep him happy. And I want you to know that I’ve taken steps to make sure you don’t have to worry—that you won’t ever have to worry. As long as you stay with me and drink your special tea every day, you’ll be safe. I promise.”
“The tea? That’s what you went back to get?” I stared at her disbelievingly and then opened the backpack to see for myself.
I had thought my mother wanted our family pictures when she begged to go back for a few things. We had a lot of them framed on the piano and hanging on the walls. But I saw she hadn’t gotten a single one. Inside the backpack were a few pieces of jewelry that my father had given her over the years and a canister of the special tea that she insisted I drink every day. This, I realized, was her real objective—she didn’t want me going without the tea for some reason. But why?
Mom had always insisted that the tea was just full of healthy herbs, “good for a growing girl.” But since I had stopped growing after I turned twelve, I didn’t know why I should keep drinking it. Still, she seemed to think it was important, so I never missed a day.
Even after we got to the Compound and I was assigned my own room—my mom was going to be staying in the master suite with Esteban, the father-killing dickhead—I kept drinking the tea every morning.
Until it ran out while she was gone.
My stepfather took her away on a long vacation and I had no idea when he was ever going to bring her back. In the meantime, I was stuck in the Compound surrounded by the huge thugs that answered only to my stepfather. And my two stepbrothers, of course.
And that was when things really started getting bloody…when the tea ran out.