Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Not pleasant.
And Mrs. G hadn’t even bothered to attempt to make it to the corner. Not that Opal blamed her.
“Are you expecting a thank you?” she asked.
Smack!
She couldn’t help but let out a small groan of pain.
Jesus.
She’d gotten used to not getting smacked around constantly. This respite might have made her a bit soft. Or it had fucked with her pain tolerance.
Because damn, that hurt.
“What are you doing, Barney! You can’t hurt her! Stop it!” Mrs. G screamed.
“I can do what I like!” Barney yelled before his boot landed against Opal’s stomach, she fell onto her back with a cry of pain, rolling into a ball instinctively to protect her head and chest.
Slam!
His boot hit her back and she screamed in pain. Then thump! He slammed his boot down on her hands. She swore she heard a crack.
Her fingers. They had to be broken. Her middle and ring fingers of her left hand throbbed.
“Stop it, Barney!”
“Shut up, old woman.”
Smack!
Fuck. She had to protect Mrs. Gingers. Opal could take this but she couldn’t.
“What sort of a man hurts an old lady?” she asked, sitting up and ignoring the pain in her body as she dove in front of Mrs. G who was lying on the floor, sobbing. “Huh? Does it make you feel good to hurt an old woman? Your own aunt?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Smack!
Oh God. That was her nose. Shit. It was bleeding everywhere.
Not good, Opal.
But at least his attention was off Mrs. G.
“Why are you doing this, Barney?” she asked. “Why are you doing this to her? To me?”
“Because she should have left my shit alone! I wouldn’t have brought her here if she hadn’t been such a nosy bitch!”
“Was this always your plan for me?” she asked, trying to keep his attention away from his aunt.
He swung around to loom over her. “You should have been mine! I’ve been watching you ever since you moved in, Opal! First, I would come in at night and just stare at you, then after you nearly woke up once I decided to put in a tiny camera. Couldn’t risk getting caught. But that ended up better because then I could touch myself without risk.”
Oh fuck.
She was going to vomit.
He’d touched himself while watching her sleep.
“My favorite times were when you would use that vibrator. You are so beautiful when you come.”
He reached out to touch her and she shied back. Instantly, she knew it was a mistake when he attacked. This time he didn’t hit her in the face, he simply grabbed her around the neck and shoved her up against the wall. He cut off her air supply and she couldn’t fight back with her hands tied. Instead, she attempted to kick him.
“Mine! You were meant to be mine! Then he came along and turned you into a fucking slut! Just. Like. Her.”
“Let go of her!” Mrs. G screamed, coming up behind him and pounding on him with her bound hands. “Let her go!”
Shit. He let her go and turned to his aunt. “Do not touch me! You don’t get to touch me!”
“How did this happen to you?” Mrs. G asked. “Your father would be so ashamed.”
Opal gasped for air, trying to breathe through the pain.
“My father! My father was a bastard who beat me!”
“What? No!” Mrs. G gasped as he loomed over her.
“And my mother was a slut who ran away with her boyfriend. Just like this bitch. Left me for some man she liked to spread her legs with behind my father’s back. Once she left, he started to hit me, hurt me. No one cared!”
“Barney, if I’d known . . .” Mrs. G said, sounding horrified.
“Nobody cared!” he roared before grabbing his aunt and throwing her against the wall.
She fell to the floor with a thump and didn’t move. That’s when Opal knew she had to make a move. There was no way she could wait for him to turn on her again. So she ran and jumped on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. He thrashed around, trying to grab her, to throw her off. He slammed her into the wall over and over until she knew she was going to be extremely bruised. But finally, she choked him long enough that he went to his knees. Then to the floor. She held on a bit longer in case it was a trick. But he didn’t move.
God, she wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.
With a sob, she pushed herself back, away from him. What was she going to do now?
She looked from him to Mrs. G.
Run, Opal.
Run!
32
The door to the police department slammed open.
Renard turned to look out Jake’s office window, staring at the parade of Malones walking in, led by Alec.
“Fuck. This is all I need,” Jake said tiredly.
Opal had been missing twenty-four hours now. And they still didn’t have any real leads. He was going out of his mind.