Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
The problem?
My attacker was now standing between me and the sink. To get the screwdriver, I would have to do the unthinkable: I’d have to move closer to him.
If I wanted to use it, though, I’d have to be close enough to slam it into some part of him.
My lungs squeezed tighter, my heartbeat thundering in my ears as I flew forward.
I dropped low when I got close, yanking open the cabinet, and feeling around inside.
A hand shot down, fingers clawing at my hair, grabbing a handful of it, and yanking hard enough back to make tears flood my eyes.
The pain was sharp and all across my scalp. Every nerve ending was begging me to lift up, to ease the sting.
But I had to fight against that; I had to pull harder, stretch further away.
My hand met some mystery fluid, making me note that if or when I got out of this situation, I needed to check that out.
And then, finally, finally, my fingers found the hard plastic handle of the ancient screwdriver.
I tightened my fist around it, brandishing it like a knife, then whipped around, and swung in the dark.
For one stomach-dropping second, I thought I’d struck into nothing but thin air.
But then the tip of the screwdriver met resistance.
My stomach lurched.
I bit back bile as I forced my hand to press in harder, deeper, even as a yowl of pain escaped my attacker, as he released my hair.
Free, I let the handle of the screwdriver go, then scrambled on all fours two feet away, four.
But just as I was pressing down to push myself to my feet, there was an exploding pain across my back as my attacker kicked me hard enough to send me flying forward with no hopes of breaking my fall.
My face cracked against the hard floor, making sparks flash behind my eyelids as the shock of impact became a throbbing pain across my cheek and up through my temple.
With each breath I sucked in, though, the pain throbbed deeper until it felt like it was an icepick to my brain itself.
I fought back a wave of nausea and pushed up to crawl forward.
But the hand was in my hair again, tugging viciously back. White-hot pinpricks of pain tracked across my head as he pulled harder and harder, dragging me up onto my knees, then my feet.
Tears flooded my cheeks even as the sudden position change had my head spinning.
That was a concussion, wasn’t it?
Not that it mattered.
Because his arm wrapped around my center, pressing hard enough to make my ribs scream, wringing any remaining air from my lungs.
It wasn’t good enough for him, though.
His arm cinched tighter, grinding bone against bone until every shallow breath scraped like broken glass in my chest.
Panic welled up, animal and mindless, the primal understanding of how close I was to unconsciousness, to death, as the air died in my lungs.
I clawed at him, nails raking skin, hot, sticky blood coating my fingertips.
I kicked, jerked, writhed with a frantic strength I didn’t know I had.
The edges of my vision went fuzzy, the world tilting with every strangled gasp I couldn’t quite draw in.
My heart hammered so violently it hurt, pleading with me to find air, find space, escape.
I had no conscious thought, no strategy—just the savage instinct to survive.
I twisted, bucked, threw my head back, anything to try to loosen his hold.
The scream stayed trapped in my throat, needing oxygen I didn’t have to escape.
The pressure on my ribs crushed tighter, steel bands cinching, each gasp becoming smaller than the last.
My chest convulsed against the unyielding arm, each attempt at air ragged.
Pain flared sharp with each inhale that didn’t quite come, spreading panic like wildfire through my veins.
My vision went spotty, little sparks of white crowding out the darkness all around.
A sound clawed from my throat, raw and cracked, not a scream, but the distinctive cry of something cornered, caught, caged.
My hand shot downward, seeking his thigh, balling my hand into a fist, trying to slam hard into his injured thigh.
My mind screamed louder than my lungs: Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
The command went unanswered.
The air wasn’t there.
The edges of the world collapsed inward, shadows smearing my vision.
My heart thrashed too hard, too heavy.
Then dulled.
The fight that had burned hot and frantic faltered.
My limbs grew heavy, each movement sluggish, weak.
I tried again, clawing, gasping, but my body betrayed me.
The panic turned into terror.
Then something smaller, quieter.
An awful, sinking surrender.
My last thought, jagged and desperate, was I can’t—
And then the world went dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Coach
I didn’t like how things felt after she interrupted my meditation session.
And, to be fair, we both held some blame there.
Este, for lying to me. More than once.
Me, for being upset about it instead of confronting her, asking her why she felt like she couldn’t give me the truth.
I just didn’t understand why the hell she felt the need to lie.