Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
I wasn’t myself.
But it didn’t matter.
“Kill, seriously, man, you’re not in a condition—”
I shoved Grasshopper away. “He’s hurt me for the last time. This time there will be no elaborate schemes, no long-winded plans to destroy him piece by piece. This time … I want his head at my feet, his blood on my face, and his soul hurtling toward hell.” Pointing a finger at Hopper’s chest, I said coldly, “Don’t try to stop me. You’ll lose.”
Hopper nodded. “What do you want to do?”
I know exactly what to do.
My lips stretched over my teeth. “We kill them, of course. Slowly, painfully. I want them to scream.”
Chapter Three
Cleo
We climbed on the roof of the Clubhouse again tonight.
We ignored our parents and stargazed until the bugs drove us inside. Lying beside him, discussing Orion’s Belt and the Milky Way, I’d never felt so close to him. When we’re up there, we aren’t boy and girl or neighbors or even friends. We’re infinite … just like the stars shining upon us. —Cleo, diary entry, age twelve
More time passed.
How much, I had no idea. There was no way to tell.
Hunger twisted my stomach, my head ached from dehydration, and my bladder was uncomfortably full.
I’d investigated until I’d memorized the pattern in the brown carpet and become best friends with every streak in the terribly painted walls. There wasn’t a rusty nail, paperclip, or even a pencil to turn into a weapon.
Nothing.
No tool to pick a lock or phone to call for help.
But I had a more pressing problem: I couldn’t stand another moment without a bathroom.
As much as I didn’t want to bring attention to myself, I had no choice.
Swinging my legs from the bed, I stomped over to the door and banged on it. “Hey!”
I paused, straining my ears for any movement outside.
Only silence returned.
I hammered again. “I need the bathroom!”
My mind left the confines of the room and traveled through the house that I’d been in so many times as a child. Would it still look the same? The Killian household wasn’t big: three bedrooms all joined by a short narrow corridor with one bathroom in the middle. The lounge was open plan with a kitchen where Art and I would spend many hours watching his mom bake and complete our homework.
My heart punctured with daggers.
Please, let him be okay.
He’s okay. He has to be.
And if he was okay, I had no doubt he would come for me.
He might already be on his way.
I just had to stay hopeful and strong and bide my time until Kill, the president of Pure Corruption, cutthroat killer, and hardass protector, came for me.
It would be a bloodbath.
Pressing my forehead on the door, I knocked as loud as my knuckles would let me. “Someone let me out of here!”
Silence.
“Are you awake, Buttercup?”
My eyes snapped open, staring directly into the soulless gaze of Rubix Killian. I winced at the pain in my bladder and the weakness of hunger.
He smirked, leaning against the door frame. “Did you still need the toilet or did the past hour push you to the breaking point?”
Sitting upright, I gritted my teeth. “If you’re asking if I disgraced myself, then you’ll be unhappy to know I haven’t.” Standing, I hissed, “Let me use the bathroom.”
He chuckled. “Still so high and mighty. Always giving demands as if I have to obey.” Pushing off the door frame, he came forward in creaking leather and smoke. “You’re not the princess around here anymore, Cleo.”
Cocking my chin, I didn’t back down. This was a man I’d been raised with as an uncle. The vice president of Dagger Rose and best friend to my father. My temper banded around me until I throbbed with the urge to make him pay. “We trusted you. I loved you. How could you be so cruel?”
He grinned. “Who’s to say I’m cruel? Your father didn’t see the potential of what our brotherhood could be. He was weak … and there ain’t no room for weakness in our Club.”
“There’s no room for liars or murderers, either.”
Rubix lost the gloating glint in his eye, replacing it with rage. “Tell that to my fucking son.”
I shot forward and slapped him.
We both gasped at the same time.
My brain transmitted the message to cause bodily harm without being filtered by rationality. My palm stung from connecting with his scruffy five-o’clock shadow.
His green eyes narrowed as he grabbed my wrist, jerking me painfully close. “You shouldn’t have done that, Buttercup.”
My stomach turned inside out with revulsion.
My nickname. It was blasphemy on his tongue.
My hands curled. “Don’t ever call me Buttercup. You lost that right years ago.”
“I can call you whatever the fuck I like.”
Asshole.
“Why did you frame your son? What did he possibly do to deserve his own father betraying him?”
Rubix turned from rage to savagery. “Don’t talk about that motherfucker in my presence.” Dragging me forward, he carted me from my prison and threw me into the bathroom two doors down—exactly as I remembered it.