Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
But I did know that when I heard his voice, it immediately chased away the flow of tears as I desperately tried to move the barricade and get to him.
In between those bullets, the man had been ranting and raving. About his cousin. About vengeance. About what he was going to do to me while he made Venezio watch.
Those were the rantings of a desperate man.
But the one chasing us, he was even more unhinged.
Instead of saving his breath like we were desperately trying to do, he was talking to himself, shouting at us.
I hoped he would run out of steam.
Because I was starting to.
Especially as the damn sky opened up once again, pelting us with freezing rain, making the ground slippery. I was struggling enough to keep going. Sliding feet only made the pain intensify.
I turned my head away from Venezio, making it look like I was scanning for some way out of this situation. In reality, I was trying to keep him from seeing the pitiful tears that slid down my cheeks again.
The streets had been pretty empty before, but now that the weather had taken a turn for the worse, things were downright desolate.
It added to the sensation of hopelessness.
It made the city fold in around me, made my lungs seem to do the same.
“There,” Venezio, suddenly short of breath too, said, waving toward the Manhattan Bridge. “Go. Run.”
“What? No. I can’t—“
“I’m ending this. Go. When you get across, I need you to find my boss.” He rattled off an address as we got closer and closer to the bridge. “Go!”
With that, he ran past the bridge, heading for the bank beside it.
On a cry, I did what I was told, rushing toward the bridge, figuring that if I was quick enough, I might be able to get him help.
This, of course, coming from someone who had no damn idea how long it might take to run over the Manhattan Bridge. Or how hazardous it felt with the ground growing more slippery by the moment.
I’d just barely gotten on it, though, before I stopped and turned.
I couldn’t leave him.
Not with that psychopath.
He would never leave me.
I knew that down to my bones.
On a whimper, I made my way back off the footpath.
I wasn’t even really aware of stooping to grab an empty bottle of booze lying on the ground. I was just aware of its reassuring weight as I moved through the fence and made my way past the rocky embankment before the sand of the shore.
It was then that I heard sounds.
Grunting, cursing, the sound of fists hitting skin and bone.
My heart lodged itself up in my throat as I moved toward the bodies rolling around in the sand near the edge of the shoreline.
I was having a hard time making out who was who as their bodies rolled, sprang apart, then came back together, arms and legs flying, kicking, kneeing.
I saw someone throw their body and then scramble out toward the side, reaching for one of the big rocks that had fallen off the wall.
And it was then that I knew it was Venezio on the ground.
I didn’t think.
I charged forward.
I hauled off.
Then I swung the bottle into the man’s head. I watched in horror as he wobbled before falling face-first into the sand.
“Venezio?” I yelped, rushing toward him.
“I’m okay, babe,” he said, even as I noticed fresh blood on his face. “Appreciate the save. But for the record,” he said, glancing down at his hand, where I found the knife the guy had been chasing us with.
“Is he…”
“Dead? No. But we gotta move.”
“You’re not going…” I waved toward the man.
“Kill him in front of you? Not unless I gotta. Besides, this place is monitored by the cops,” he said, jerking his head toward where, I imagined, a camera must have been mounted. “They won’t do shit about a street fight. But they’re gonna investigate a murder. So we gotta let him wake up. We got several minutes of a head start. Let’s make good use of it.”
With that, he took my hand.
And for what I prayed was the last time, we took off at a run.
This time, though, with Venezio there to steady me, I didn’t slip as much. And the cold sleet soaking through my slippers did me a favor in numbing my painful feet, allowing me to keep going, keep pushing.
The bridge was abandoned.
And with the sleet steadily freezing on the fencing, it would have made for a gorgeous picture.
If we weren’t, you know, running for our lives.
The subway chugged past, vibrating the ground beneath our feet. The temperature seemed to be dropping by the minute, hardening the wetness of my shirt collar, turning it into a blade against my neck.
Moving closer and closer, the lights of Manhattan loomed ahead. And, with them, I hoped, was the help Venezio seemed sure we could find there.