Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
My water glass rattled off the nightstand and shattered on the hardwood. The chime of the alarm kicked in a half-second later. Safety lights flooded the doorways.
I bolted from the bed, trying to get my bearings… and promptly tripped on my shoes and fell to the floor with a jarring thud.
After taking a deep breath and shaking my head to clear it of sleep, I shoved my feet into my shoes, snagged a sweater to go over my pajamas, and ran for the door. The security lights lining the hallway gave off a soft glow. I looked down the hall as another door opened and a woman stepped out.
“What is that?” she asked. “What’s happening?” I saw the same fear in her eyes I felt in my chest.
Before I could answer, heavy boots pounded up the stairwell from the other end of the hall. Three men from Kiss of Death hurried in our direction. The one in front, a guy named Tiny, who was built like a refrigerator with a shaved head and a beard that reached his chest, beckoned us in his direction.
“Safe room,” he barked. “Now. Everyone to the safe room.”
Two more doors opened. Another woman with a baby clutched to her chest and a teenage girl who’d come alone to Haven. We all stood frozen for a moment, still slightly stunned.
The building shuddered again. Somewhere below us, metal screamed against metal, the impact worse this time…
Silence…
The world exploded in a deafening boom and a shower of glass and debris. The concussion tossed me down the hall and knocked the breath out of me. My ears rang and everything seemed to come from deep inside a well.
“Move!” Tiny picked up a kid in each arm as he yelled. Each man with Tiny helped one of the women. Through the smoke and dust, I didn’t recognize the man who came to help me, but I waved him off anyway.
“Help the children. I’m good. I’m good.”
I rolled onto my side and pushed myself up on one elbow. My head swam. Something warm trickled down my temple. When I wiped at it, my fingers came away red. The cut was shallow, but blood had already matted my hair above my ear. The hallway was thick with dust and a sharp, acrid, biting scent.
The teenage girl from down the hall appeared through the dust cloud, her face streaked with tears. She grabbed my arm. “Which way?”
I pointed down the hall. “That way. Follow Tiny.”
She didn’t move. “I can’t -- I don’t --”
“Go,” I said, giving her a gentle shove. “Tiny will keep you safe. Run. Now.”
She nodded, then turned and obeyed. The woman with the baby was already gone, carried by one of the MC guys. The third woman from my floor was nowhere in sight but the one thing I knew about these guys was they’d make sure everyone got to safety.
The building groaned. Not an explosion, but another impact from below sent a vibration through the floor that I felt in my teeth. More glass shattered somewhere.
I’d made it to the first floor and moved toward the safe room but paused when I heard terrified sobbing. I stopped, listening for the sound again. It was hard to get a direction because of the ringing in my ears from the blast. The farther toward the common room I went, the louder the crying. My shoes crunched on the broken glass in the hallway with each step as I made my way to the back of the room.
The furniture had been tossed around like toys and debris littered the area with dust still floating in the air. The large window at the far end was now a jagged hole letting in the gray light of morning.
A woman sat on the floor beside the overturned couch and table, her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. She was older than me, maybe thirty, with dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore flannel pajamas and no shoes. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders shook with each sob.
I crossed the room and knelt beside her. Up close, I could see a dark bruise forming along her jawline, fresh enough that the skin was still swelling.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Where else are you hurt?”
She didn’t look up. Her fingers dug into her hair. “I can’t,” she whispered. “He’s coming. He’ll find me here.”
“No one’s coming in,” I said. “The club’s got the building locked down. We’ll be safe in the special room they built for us. Remember?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know him. He said he’d find me. He said he’d kill me if I ran.”
I reached for her hand, gently prying her fingers from her hair. Her skin was ice-cold. “What’s your name?”
She looked up then. Her eyes were red and swollen, the left one nearly shut from the bruising. “M-Melanie.”