Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Panic even more intense than what was already tearing through me forces me to my feet, so I can try the handle again and again. So I can throw myself against the door until my shoulder screams almost as loudly as I do.
I have to get out. I have to. I’ll die here if I don’t.
It’s only Friday afternoon—I can’t wait until Monday!
I’ll never make it. I’m already freezing, shaking, choking on my sobs while the strength leaves my body.
“Please,” I whimper, touching my forehead to the door, tears flowing down my cheeks. What did I do to deserve this? What have I ever done?
It’s dark, so dark. My eyes are starting to adjust, though, thanks partly to that gap between floor and door. I can barely make out a wheeled bucket, shelves of supplies. Sliding my hands along the wall helps me find a light switch, which I gratefully flip. Nothing.
A choked sob tears its way from my scratchy, sore throat, but I keep flipping the switch up and down anyway, like that will do anything. For all I know, they took the lightbulb out to make sure I wouldn’t have even an overhead light to help me cling to sanity.
“Why?”
The last of my strength leaves me all at once, and I slide down the door until I’m on the floor, shivering, with nothing to keep me warm but the arms I wrap around my knees.
I can barely breathe. Each breath I manage to pull in is shakier than the one before, panic threatening to sink its claws in deep.
I could die here. Don’t they understand that? I could die, cold and hungry and thirsty. All alone, with nobody to know or even care. And they’ll go on with their lives, and it won’t be long until I’m forgotten. Just another casualty, chewed up and spat out by a bunch of soulless people.
I would tell myself not to let it break me down, to fight, to find a way… But I don’t think there is a way, and if there was, I don’t think I’m strong enough anymore to hold on.
What is there to hold onto?
There’s no hope left. Not while I’m shaking with cold and wishing harder than I ever have that I had never been born.
When my eyes start to close, I let them. Sleep has to be better than the torture of being awake. Maybe I’ll get lucky and die in my sleep.
But who am I kidding? I’ve never been lucky a day in my life. Why would I start now?
Chapter 9
Kellen
Fuck.
My eyes are burning by the time I give up trying to sleep Saturday morning, after spending probably the longest and most useless night ever. Usually, I would sleep in today, leaving my alarm off and only getting out of bed when my bladder gives me no other choice. Kind of hard to do that when you barely slept in the first place.
It’s all her fucking fault.
Mission accomplished. Janitor closet next to the science lab.
That was Tiana’s text yesterday. She didn’t say much, but the message came through. Somehow, she and her friends went through with locking Tamson in a closet at school.
I don’t want to know how—the less I know, the better. Bullying somebody online is one thing, but actually putting hands on them, locking them up? That’s a little different, with bigger stakes. I’m not trying to get too deeply involved. This wasn’t even my idea, after all. I only approved it.
Right. Does that make you feel better?
Fuck. All night, that’s what I’ve been struggling with. The nagging, nonstop voice in my head. Reminding me what Tamson is suffering through. Not that it’s my problem. Not that I put her in that closet. My conscience won’t leave me alone, either way.
I’m doing this because Dad wants me to.
That used to be enough in the past. Not even that long ago. I sure as hell didn’t have a moment of regret after beating the shit out of her dad, did I? I turned off any thoughts or feelings that might get in the way of my duty. It’s like I forgot how to do that. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I know the answer, obviously. It’s her. Tamson. She happened, and instead of doing the smart thing by forcing myself to shut down the habit of thinking about her so much, I totally lost sight of the big picture. I let her become an obsession, and now I’m trapped.
On the one hand, she’s not my problem and I’m not the one who locked her in a closet.
On the other hand, I can’t make myself forget the way she makes the noise in my head go quiet. The rage I’ve lived with so long it’s become a part of me smooths out into something bearable when I’m in her presence. I guess part of that could be because I’ve poured so much of my energy into thinking about her, imagining what I could do to her.