Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
The wind whipped around again, caught a drywall bucket, and sent the damn thing right into his shin. As he cursed and hobbled, Petey stepped in front of Big D while the other man headed back for the jackhammer.
“Say somethin’,” Petey barked. “Fuck, speak wouldya!” Big D just stared down at the guy. Like all the noise at his feet was a walkie-talkie that had been dropped.
“That’s it? You just gonna look at me? That’s all you got, you motherfuckin’—”
As the slur was dropped for a second time, what happened next was something that Bob would replay for the rest of his life:
Big D still didn’t respond, so Petey palmed up and punched the guy right on the pecs. The double strike was like a toddler tantruming a brick wall.
And that’s when Big D, the strong, silent type, finally reacted.
That heavy right arm snapped out and he grabbed Petey’s throat like a rope. The lift that followed wasn’t exactly a surprise, but when was the last time anybody’d seen a full-ass grown man dangling from a fist grip, with his work boots clapping together as if they approved of the find-out after all the fuckin’ around?
Bob hurried his own Timberlands up, but he had to dodge another tumbleweed bucket, a flag of netting that had torn off one of the pedestrian barriers, and something that could have been a panel of particle board—or might have been a fantastical flying beast, because this shit was surely some kind of screwed-up fever dream.
By the time he got to the problem, Petey was clawing desperately at the hand around his neck, his jowls all basset-hound bunched up, his already ruddy face barn red and getting worse.
Bob tried to put some authority into his voice: “Hey, Big D, how about you put him down—”
His voice dried up as the guy’s head cranked toward him. Those eyes… so unremarkable before… had a soulless gleam to them that made them unforgettable: There was nothing behind the ice-cold stare. Not a scrap of humanity, and no recognition, either.
And as the other dozen or so guys on shift came over from the picnic tables, Bob stopped them with a glare. A pile-on might be a good solution in another situation. In this one? He was worried that Big D might snap Petey’s fucking neck and then get to work on the rest of them.
“Hey, D,” he said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone, “let’s put him down, ’kay? You don’t want to go to jail over him. He’s not worth it. Plus he’s sorry, ain’t you, Petey.”
Petey did what he could do to nod as tears welled and started to fall from his bulging eyes. Whether that was emotion or the precursor to him going empty-socket, it was impossible to know.
“You hear me, Big D?” Bob took out his cell phone and waved it in the guy’s general direction. “If you hurt him, I’ma have to call the police. So let’s not escalate this—”
Petey’s eyes rolled back in his head, only the whites showing, and his boots abruptly stopped kicking.
“Devlin, you gotta let him down!” The wind was so loud, Bob had to shout over it. And then there was the alarm that had started to scream in his own head. “Come on, man! You want to go to jail for the rest of your l—”
The metal-on-metal creaking was the kind of sound that, after twenty years working construction, you instantly knew meant two things: One, it was something big. And two, gravity had a helluva hold on whatever the hell it was.
So a different kind of danger had just shown up to the chat.
And it was on such a scale that everyone, even Big D, looked to the roof of the building next door.
It was that goddamn purple billboard, the one with that brunette’s face on it and some stupid logo. The vicious wind had caught the panels, turned them into a sail—and was in the process of peeling the bitch right off its support scaffolding.
Bob did a quick trajectory check. The gusts were going to take it away from the construction site and the bib’d-up, hard-hatted men who were standing around watching the show.
That was the good news. The bad news? Those people clustered around the glow of that club Bathe’s entrance were fucked.
Not his problem, though.
Bob went back to what was his issue: “Put him down, Dev. Or I’m calling the police.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Allhan, stop!”
Lyric tripped and flipped her way through the salted slush and frozen snow of the alley, knowing full well that it was going to be a miracle if she didn’t break all of her ankles—because surely she had more than two if she was still upright.
“Allhan, hold up—”
With a squeak, she went full modern dance, her rhythm chiropractic, her sense of balance far outstretching her coordination. The damn Louboutins were somehow backup, though, the spiky heels like stakes on a tent, anchoring her even as she blew all around. Meanwhile, Allhan spun to a halt at the head of the lane, the crazy wind billowing his baggy shirt out from his soda-straw body, his frizzy hair remaining utterly unaffected by the maelstrom.