Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
“Oh wow, Phillip,” comes Kira’s strained voice. “This is just a lot. So fast. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll come with me.”
“First, can you put away the knife, honey? I really don’t like knives.”
That little motherfucker. Which one is he? Curls? Or the Timothy McVeigh wannabe? Not that it matters. He’s about to be nothing but a bag of bones.
I hop up from the floor, careful to be quiet about it, and grab my Leatherman from its holster on my belt. I pull out one of the tiny tools and have the lock picked in thirty seconds but don’t open the door immediately.
I drop back down to listen to the voices again, clocking where in the room the little peckerwood is standing.
Then I reach up to open the door and launch myself into the room in one motion.
I charge the piss-ant threatening Kira, eyes on his hands to watch for the knife. He fumbles to raise it, but he’s not nearly fast enough.
I quick-jab my fist into his wrist. He drops it and screams in pain before I sucker punch him in the guts, doubling him over.
He doesn’t even put up a fight when I grab one wrist and then the other and yank them behind his back.
It was Curls after all. I knew this kid wasn’t right from the first day I saw him eyeing Kira in class.
“Check him for zip ties,” Kira says, pressing herself back against her bookcase, eyes wide as she breathes hard.
Did he touch her? I’ll kill the little fucker if he put a finger on her.
I’m already checking all his pockets for weapons anyway, so I also feel around for zip ties.
He’s busy spluttering. “You can’t do this to me! I have rights!”
“Call the cops,” I tell Kira.
I wrestle the string bean kid out of her office and slam him to the ground on his stomach in the hallway. He shrieks and starts crying. I can’t believe this is the little bitch that’s had Kira so on edge and scared all these weeks. I keep his wrists held tight in one hand while I yank off my belt with the other.
“Hello?” Kira’s saying in the background. “Yes. My name is Kira Roberts. A student just attacked me in my office in the Psychology building at UT Dallas. I’m in office 335, third floor.”
“I didn’t attack you,” Phillip shouts. “I love you! Why are you being such a bitch?”
I knock his head lightly against the tile. “Hey! Learn some fucking manners.”
He just starts crying again as I loop my belt around his wrists, yanking it tight. I keep him on his belly until the cops show up ten minutes later.
FORTY
ISAAK
“Thank you, ma’am,” says the officer, tucking away his note pad. “We’ll follow up with you if we have any more questions.”
“Thank you,” Kira whispers, eyes coming to me like they have so often over the last couple hours while cops poured onto campus, took Phillip into custody, partitioned off the crime scene, and pulled each of us aside for questioning.
She looks like she’s about to drop, and all I want is to pull her into my arms.
No. I have to forcibly stop my arms from moving. You aren’t like that anymore. She’s getting married next week.
I wince and drop my head. Now that her stalker’s been found, my job is up. I figured things would be done after the wedding, but now…
I was supposed to have another week.
Another week of gazing at her even if I couldn’t touch her. Another week of listening to her laughing voice when she’s catching up with friends or muttering curse words under her breath as she works on her dissertation. Another week of inhaling her—her shampoo and bodywash after a long day when it’s intermingled with the scent that is just her.
It’s not supposed to be over yet.
But as the police lights whirl, taking Phillip away, the harsh reality settles like a stone deep in my stomach.
She doesn’t need me anymore.
“So,” she says, coming to stand beside me, looking in the same direction I am. “That’s that, I guess.”
“That’s that.”
And then she suddenly spins toward me. “You were planning to keep working until the wedding, right?”
I frown at her. What does she mean by that?
“I was,” I say slowly.
She smiles brightly. “Great, so I’ve got you for another week.”
My chest feels lighter at the thought of not immediately losing her. You’re still losing her, you dumb bastard. Rip off the goddamned band aid already.
So I shake my head. “Stalker’s been caught. No reason for that.”
“What if there was a reason?”
I shake my head, not following.
But her eyes are bright, and she’s talking a mile a minute. “Because I was thinking for my last week of freedom that I would take a road trip. Yeah.” She nods to herself as if she’s saying things just as they occur to her. “And it’s not safe driving west through parts of Texas. A woman all by myself.”