Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
The man steps into view. He pauses and looks both ways, searching for where I went, but he doesn’t check the ground for footprints. Amateur move.
He approaches the fence, and the pit bull surges to his feet. Kill switch activated. He gives a warning growl before erupting in loud, snarling barks that send the man stumbling back.
Such a good boy. I’m bringing him two pieces of jerky tomorrow.
The man shakes out his shoulders as if annoyed he got spooked. As he moves away, I slip out silently behind him and match my footsteps to the rhythm of his strides so our sounds overlap.
When his pace quickens, I fade into the shadows, angling around him and staying low. Then I dart forward.
My shoulder slams into his ribs as I hook my foot behind his ankle, taking him down. We hit the ground in a burst of dust, and before he can recover, I press the switchblade under his jaw, right against the soft place that bleeds fast.
“Whoa!” His hands shoot up in surrender. “Okay, okay, hang on!”
“Why the hell are you following me?”
“You don’t know?” His eyes widen, darting across my face. “You’re wanted by—”
A crunch splits the air, wet and heavy, as a hunting knife slams through his skull. His body goes slack beneath me.
My breath stops, and my gaze locks onto the hand holding the knife’s hilt. Then the muscled arm. The bulging shoulder. I shove off the body, fall onto my back, and stare up at beautiful, hooded, amber eyes.
I don’t know who lunges first, but we collide in a tangle of arms and legs, hugging and stumbling until Jag lifts me off the ground. Whirling, he carries me off the street, into a narrow alley, and presses a finger to my lips.
With a nod, I keep quiet as he hauls the body into one of the abandoned houses across the street.
Minutes later, he returns, wiping the blade on his jeans. But his movements look wrong, too tense, like he knows we’re not out of trouble.
“We gotta go.” He scans the perimeter. “Now.”
“Who was he?”
“A problem with more to follow.” He clasps my wrist and walks fast, not running, but at a pace that says we’re being watched and he’s not telling me how bad it is.
We cut through side streets and down several blocks until we reach a squat one-story house with peeling paint and Christmas lights still stapled to the roof from who-knows-when.
“Where are we?” My hand feels clammy in his. “What is this?”
Before we step onto the porch, the door cracks open.
A bald man in a terry-cloth robe, boxers, and cowboy boots peers out with a revolver leveled through the gap.
His eyes shift to me. “You can’t bring a kid here.”
“I got nowhere else to go with her.” Jag straightens to his full, imposing height.
“Is she—?”
“My daughter.”
The lie shocks me so hard I almost choke. Daughter? He’s never called me anything but his little bird.
“As if I can say no to you.” The man sighs, lowers the gun, and opens the door. “She stays in the bedroom.”
Jag drags me inside.
The moment we cross the threshold, the reek of cigarette smoke, bleach, and mold invades my nose.
A single lamp with no shade throws a sickly glow over a sagging brown couch. Two women lounge there, one in a tank top and panties, the other wrapped in a leopard-print blanket with nothing underneath. Their eyes track us with that slow, unfocused drift that comes from whatever they snorted, smoked, or swallowed.
The coffee table is cluttered with bent spoons, glass pipes, foil squares, disposable lighters, a razor blade, a credit card dusted with powder, and a half-eaten pizza slice stuck to the cardboard. Empty beer cans rattle when someone shifts their leg.
“I’m running a business here.” The man joins the women on the couch. “Not a daycare.”
Jag keeps me glued to his hip as we move through the room.
We pass a kitchen with yellow walls and a table covered in Solo cups, pill bottles, and a digital scale that probably hasn’t been cleaned since the last raid. Someone left a pot on the stove, and its contents emit a burnt smell that makes me gag.
“This way.” He moves fast, eyes forward, steering me down the hall and into a bathroom.
He shuts the door behind us, turns on the faucet, and scrubs the blood off his hands. His reflection in the mirror looks too pale under the grime.
“We have to move again.” I watch the blood swirl down the sink.
“Not yet.”
“But—”
“No.” He washes my hands next. Then he grips my elbow and leads me into a room at the end of the hall.
I stop short.
This… This is not where Jag lives.
My brother lives in cardboard forts, tents under bridges, and abandoned buildings with no running water.
But this room?
It’s spotless. A real bed. Multiple desks with towers of hardware. High-end monitors. Servers stacked like black bricks. Cables braided in neat coils. All of it creates a low, humming heartbeat under the floor.