Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
He’d done three months before the Ravens intervened, hijacked his life, and changed his fate.
He wasn’t surprised when he failed their tests.
He wasn’t a gang leader—he hadn’t even been a member—despite being labeled as one in the penal system. It was his ignorance that’d landed him in prison, not bravado.
He wasn’t street smart or raised by a gang like Scar. He’d only been coddled and protected by one that ruled the other side of town, but never officially allowed in.
No matter what the Ravens injected into his veins, he wasn’t the monster they tried to turn him into. So when he didn’t meet their expectations, he was no longer of use.
The director said he wouldn’t keep things that didn’t work.
But Scar, on the other hand, was a mastermind, and his plan had gotten them out of there.
Now here he was, terrified, clueless, and in the dark.
Something crinkled. Scar was chewing, smacking, and Gage’s irritation flared again as his stomach growled.
Of course he didn’t get anything for me.
He was startled when a small object hit his lap.
He groped at the rectangular item with rounded edges and cool glass that flipped open. He squeezed the sides, and it lit up, the light attempting to bleed through the layers of his ruined eyes.
It was a cell phone.
He angled it away and opened his mouth to snarl before he closed it again.
“We’re in Bumfuck, North Carolina. There’s a twenty-four-hour gas station a couple miles up the road, and a town I assume will wake up soon. Also, I’d hurry to make a call and ditch the phone before it’s reported stolen.”
“How do you know we’re in North Carolina?” he asked.
His suspicion of every word Scar said was automatic.
“License plates.” He moved, his shoes scuffing on dirt. “A billboard in a cornfield the size of three football fields said, ‘Tyrel County Revival.’ You can call someone to come get you. I’m out.”
Gage’s chest tightened. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Home.”
He laughed, harsh and humorless. “Seriously? You’re still a fugitive, in case you forgot about the life sentences you were serving.”
“No ones looking for a dead man,” Scar droned. “One of the doctors from that fucked-up lab said there was a story on the news about my transport van exploding.”
Gage pfft’d. “And you believed him?”
“Look, it’s what he fuckin’ said, okay?” Scar’s tone said he didn’t give a damn if Gg3w believed him or not. “And even if it is a lie, I’m still going home.”
“It’s suicide to go back to Chicago,” he said. “Your crew will think you’re a rat, or worse, an informant. Nobody is sentenced to life and reappears on the streets five years later.”
“My crew knows me. It’ll be a celebration.”
“Okay, sure. Good luck with that,” he scoffed.
He’d been annoyed by Scar from the moment they first met. He was a bully, thief, murderer, and a miserable jerk who blamed everyone but himself for his problems.
Silence stood between them.
“How do you know those killers on the roof aren’t still hunting us?” he asked, stalling without admitting it.
“Don’t care. I beat ’em once, ain’t no thing to do it again.”
The scrape of wood, and rush of cold air hitting his face, revealed the door was opening.
“You’re a fool,” he told Scar.
“Stay here, turn yourself in, become a farm hand, whatever. I don’t care.”
The shape that was Scar disappeared through the bright block before it went dark again.
Gage sat with the sound of Scar leaving and let it infuriate him for a long moment.
He flipped open the phone—the glare causing pain to pulse in the center of his forehead—and began clumsily swiping and jabbing at the screen.
He took deep breaths to quench the panic and waited.
With all the trauma the Ravens had inflicted on him, one thing they gave him from all those injections that he appreciated was enhanced strength, the feeling of invincibility, increased stamina, and a sharpened analytical instinct that accelerated his reaction time.
I got this.
There was but one name he could think of that would come through for him, no matter what, no questions asked.
He tried to recall his friend’s number and hit a blank wall.
He whispered combinations in his mind until one finally echoed true.
Of course the keypad was familiar, but he failed the first fifty or more tries. He just had to steady himself.
He missed over and over before growling and forcing his hands to be still. Then he tried again.
Two numbers. Three. Backspace. Start over.
Did that for at least an hour. Then the line rang.
He held the phone to his ear and listened to his own breath and the rush of his pulse.
Ring.
He swallowed.
Ring.
Click.
“Yo?”
His best friend’s voice was laden with sleep and distorted by the fuzz of cheap cell service, but he knew it was him.
“Roz,” he said, damn near breaking. “It’s me.”
Silence blared on the other end before his friend whispered his name as if it was a forbidden secret.