Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 42863 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42863 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
My gut cramped, and my chin wobbled. A tear slid down my cheek despite my best efforts to keep them contained.
I’m so sorry, Beck.
I slowly forked a piece of sausage into my mouth, chewing just as slowly. Eating real food like this was different when I’d been surviving off of almost nothing. Food had been scarce, water even more so. Beck snuck me as much food as he could the past couple of months after he infiltrated the trafficking ring I was trapped in, but it was still very seldom. He wasn’t really allowed around me unless I was unconscious.
Which was more often than not due to me being a fighter. Those fuckers had done their best to break me since they couldn’t sell me if I fought too much, but I’d held strong to my will to live. I would not give in, even if every part of me was so damn tired, I felt like giving up.
“Where are you from, Clarke?” Adelaide asked me as she sipped at her coffee. Her eyes were on her oldest son, who was reading—I’d been introduced to everyone down here. They all kept their distance from me, but all the men in the building were unsettling all the same.
“Um, Washington,” I murmured. “Seattle, specifically.”
“And your parents?” Reina asked as her daughter, Houston, came over to her with a ponytail holder. Reina immediately began braiding the girl’s long hair before tying it off at the end and sending her back on her way to continue drawing whatever she was sketching in that black book.
I frowned. “Amber Corey,” I told her. “My stepdad is Carl Corey.”
“Did you take on your stepfather’s last name, too?” Adelaide asked me. Immediately, I shook my head, my lips twisting the tiniest bit in disgust. I hated that man with a passion. He was cruel and demeaning and only cared about money and his image.
“Uh, no. My stepdad’s an asshole,” I said bluntly. “My last name is Tobin. It’s my father’s, and he was a decent man. A drunk driver killed him,” I supplied before she could ask about that, too. I felt like I was under investigation, but I sort of understood. I didn’t know why they hadn’t sent me home yet, but I wasn’t keen on returning there either. Not without Beck.
Beck had kept me safe, and the moment he left home at my urging to go chase his dreams, things at home had gotten… weird. Strange men and women came and went at all hours of the day and night, never using the front entrance. I was always sent to my room when they came, which was where I ended up staying most of the time since someone shady-looking was always in our home.
I’d wanted to call Beck so many times and plead for him to come back home but… well, I didn’t want to be the reason his dream ended.
Only, I had been anyway. Because Beck had come after me. Had quit school and hockey and tracked me down to the trafficking ring I was being smothered in. He’d dove head-first into the danger. And while he hadn’t been able to rescue me, I was grateful he was there. That I wasn’t alone.
I’d clung to his presence with both hands, letting it be my reason to keep fighting. To not lose my will to live.
Beck hadn’t left me alone.
And that meant more to me than anything else in the whole damn world.
5
Tank
“You ready to head down?” River asked as he emerged from the chapel, a mug of coffee in his hands. Sam slipped out behind him, nodding once at me in greeting. River hadn’t been happy I’d left someone alive, but I wanted to know what was going through Beck’s head. He didn’t look like the other guards. His haircut was too expensive, and he was too young—didn’t match what the other guards looked like. It was suspicious.
And why hadn’t he come out with guns raised like the other guards when we’d infiltrated the building? Why was he trying to escape with the girl that was currently upstairs in my room?
Shit wasn’t adding up, and I wanted answers.
I nodded once at him and pushed open the door to the basement. River and Sam followed me down, and Sam shut the door and locked it back behind us. I flipped on the light, casting the room in a dim glow. Beck blinked and looked at me, meeting my gaze with his gray ones. They were an alarming color—one that I wanted to get lost in, which was just as dangerous.
Those eyes held a softness to them that wasn’t usual from men I’d found him surrounded with.
“Where’s Clarke?” he finally asked.
“None of your fucking business,” I told him immediately. He clenched his jaw but remained silent. “Beck, right?” He nodded once, his eyes never leaving me. River and Sam leaned against the wall, letting me handle this. “You were a guard, correct?” He nodded again. “Why didn’t you follow the orders you were no doubt given and try to kill me and Joey?”