Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
And who the hell began shoveling the cocktail of drugs down her throat? Drugs that she’d never needed at all.
A knock sounded, and Autumn looked up to see a man peeking into Chantelle’s partially open door. He pushed it open a bit more, and Chantelle turned in her chair.
“Er, Ms. Rogers, sorry to interrupt. Can I get your signature on some forms? It will only take a few minutes, and I need them before court in an hour.”
“Sure. Excuse me for a minute, Autumn,” Chantelle said, standing and following the man from the room.
Autumn sat back in her chair with a frustrated sigh, her gaze moving to the file cabinets across the room.
The file cabinets that might contain the answers she’d just been denied.
Chapter Thirteen
Sam lifted the last bale of hay, placed it on top of the neat pile he’d formed, and then used his arm to wipe the drops of sweat from his forehead.
A shaft of light filtered through the hayloft window, trickling down to where Sam stood, and he raised his face, closing his eyes as he felt the touch of warmth.
What happened in Macau, Sam?
Despite the sun, a chill wafted through him—an internal freeze—and he opened his eyes, stepping from the light and then taking off his gloves and tossing them aside.
He’d failed. He’d failed a mission, and because of it, Dr. Heathrow had removed him. Banished him. Thrown him away. When you’re dismissed, you die. Your purpose has ended. His guts still twisted when he thought of the moment the doctor had pointed at the door, sadness and disappointment in his eyes as he told Sam to pack his bag and go.
So he’d left to die as he’d been trained to do. It was his final mission. What other choice did he have anyway? He had no skills other than those he’d been trained in. Hunting. Killing.
When you’re dismissed, you die. What the order really meant was when you’re dismissed, you kill yourself. Which was for the best. He wouldn’t survive on his own, because he had no idea where to even start, nowhere to go. But…he hadn’t gone about the killing of himself right away. After all, the last mission didn’t exactly spell out a time frame. So for a while, he’d used the only skills he’d had to keep himself alive. He’d hunted. Animals this time. He’d built campfires. He’d kept himself warm and fed. He’d taken weeks to consider the best way to die. He had a weapon, of course; he’d packed it in his bag when he’d left. Which was what was expected, considering he was on a suicide mission.
When you’re dismissed, you die.
On his other missions, they’d given him a cyanide pill to take in the event of capture. But Dr. Heathrow didn’t give him a cyanide pill when he banished him. Sam wondered why and figured maybe it would make authorities suspicious if they found a man dead by cyanide on a nature trail somewhere.
Yes, he’d planned to die. He still did. And he was mostly fine with it because he deserved to die. But then he’d stumbled across the old man, lost in the trees at the edge of his own property. The man hadn’t been afraid of him, even though he knew he looked like the monster he was—his hair darkened with dirt, beard ratty and unkempt, military-style clothes, and a gun in his waistband. He was filthy. After all, he’d been living in the woods. But the old man had smiled and sounded relieved to come upon another person, and then he’d reached his hand out to Sam, mostly in the right direction. It was then Sam realized the man was blind.
No wonder he wasn’t afraid of him. Him, the large, muscular stranger with exposed scars, young but with a head full of dirty hair that was strangely as pale as the moon. They’d made him cut it short and dye it when he went on missions.
I made a boy of moonlight.
He’d said her words over and over as he’d sat at the edge of the stream or the base of a tree, lying in the sun and planning the best way to die.
Were her words what kept him alive longer than he’d meant? Maybe. But they were only a temporary stall for what he knew was necessary. Inevitable.
He had no place in this world.
He didn’t want a place in this world.
Life was only pain and suffering and ugliness and loneliness too terrible to bear.
The only beautiful thing he’d ever known in his miserable life was her. A momentary light. A small taste of what beauty meant. But she was long gone, somewhere far away, living a better life.
Or so he hoped.
But despite his appearance and the way his voice croaked the first words he’d spoken in weeks, the old man had smiled at him, happy and relieved by his presence, and he’d led the blind man back to the path he’d wandered from. The man had offered him a meal and then later a job working on his apple farm, and he’d accepted though he had no idea why.