Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
"What the hell?" Aaron asked, but Neil quieted him with a violent hiss.
He had to let go of Aaron at the stairs because he couldn't haul Aaron up behind him and hope for him to be quiet. He half-expected Aaron to leave again now that he was released, but he'd piqued Aaron's curiosity with his urgency. Neil went up the carpeted steps as quietly as he could. Aaron was near silent behind him. Neil guessed he'd spent enough time in this house to know which stairs creaked under a man's body weight.
Every door on the second floor was open except one, and Neil heard the distant thump of something hitting the wall. He tried the knob, found it locked, and darted to the next door down to see what kind of wood the doors were made of. It was plywood-overlaid fiberboard with a hollow interior, easy enough to kick through.
Aaron had a hand up to pound on the door, so Neil shoved his racquet at Aaron. Aaron grabbed hold of it instinctively. Neil took a half-second to brace himself and drove the heel of his foot into the door as close to the knob as he could. Wood splintered around his shoe and his heel almost got caught on the jagged edges when he yanked it free.
"Jesus fuck—" Aaron started, startled, but Neil gave the door another savage kick.
This time the door popped open. Neil stumbled inside. He needed two steps to get his balance back and he looked up at the fight they'd burst in on.
Drake said something. Neil didn't know what. He'd remember the words later, the angry demand to know what they were doing barging in like this. Right now Drake's voice was just a roar in Neil's ears, or maybe that sound was Neil's world crashing down around him. He didn't know.
He only had a second to take it in, but that second burned the awful details into him in a way he'd never forget. There was blood on Drake's face in jagged lines, injuries wrought by desperate fingernails. The heavy length of his body, tattooed and muscular, kept Andrew pinned to the mattress with its weight alone. An arm across the back of Andrew's neck forced his face ear-deep in a blood-splattered pillow. Drake's other hand was up at the headboard, squeezed so tight around Andrew's wrists Andrew's fingers were ghostly white and bloodless. Neil saw too much blood and too much skin. He knew what he was seeing, knew what this meant, but couldn't believe it yet. That didn't stop him from leaping at Drake.
Aaron was faster.
He barreled past Neil almost hard enough to take Neil off his feet. Drake looked like he could take any of them in a fight, even with his pants around his ankles, but he was too tangled in the sheets to get up fast enough. Aaron wasn't waiting for him to figure it out. He brought Neil's racquet up and around in an underhanded swing so hard and fast air whistled through the tight strings. The head caught Drake in his temple, crushing one eye in its socket and burying deep in his skull with a wet crunch.
Drake's blood sloshed from Aaron to the wall to the curtains pulled tightly closed over the nearby window. His body tumbled off the far side of the bed, dragging the sheets with it and hitting the ground with a meaty thud. The next crash was Neil's racquet slipping from Aaron's nerveless fingers to the floor. Neil couldn't look at him, couldn't look at Drake, couldn't look at anything or anyone but Andrew.
Andrew wore only his shirt as he lay facedown on the mattress. He was covered in blood and a hundred shadows that would darken to terrible bruises. He held onto the headboard like his hands were glued to it, and he was laughing. It was muffled through the pillow but Neil heard it; the sound of it had the entire world tilting underneath his feet. He wanted to cover his ears and block it out, but he didn't have time. The pounding of footsteps somewhere behind him said Kevin was running upstairs to investigate the commotion.
Neil dove forward and climbed onto the mattress at Andrew's side. He reached over him, snagged the edge of the sheets, and gave a fierce yank to free it from Drake's corpse. Neil only had the bloody sheet partway over Andrew's body before Kevin reached them. Neil didn't know how much Kevin saw. He couldn't look back to see Kevin's reaction, but the thud said Kevin recoiled from the sight in front of him and backed right into the doorframe.
A second later Kevin was gone again. Neil heard him race back downstairs so fast it was a miracle he didn't fall and break something. He was going to get Nicky and Luther, Neil knew. He was going to call the police. Knowing doctors would be here soon helped ease a little of the lump in Neil's throat, but his insides were still crumbling to dust.
"Hey," Neil said, or thought he said. He didn't recognize his own voice. "Andrew. Andrew, are you—"
He couldn't ask if Andrew was okay. He wasn't that cruel. He would beg Andrew to stop laughing if he could but every word he spoke threatened to set off his gag reflex. All he could do was hang on, fingers knotted in the sheet he'd gotten up to Andrew's shoulders.
"Got quiet all of a sudden," Andrew said, sounding surprised. He finally let go of the headboard and flexed his fingers as if working out a cramp. He planted his hands against the mattress and tried pushing himself upright. Halfway there he went still and started laughing again. "Oh, oh, that's unpleasant. I am not a fan of this at all."
Neil could feel Andrew trembling through the sheet, but Andrew's body and mind were operating on two different wavelengths. Andrew's grin was wide and savage as he mocked his own pain. Neil wanted to tell him to hold still, but Andrew finally got himself upright. The sheet threatened to slip off his shoulders, so Neil wrapped it tighter around him. Andrew let him do it with a bemused look on his face. Blood was smeared and half-dried in a line down his cheek to his chin from a gash at his temple.