Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Arsen didn’t kill Hank Turner, but he came pretty damn close. My father had to spend months at the hospital after Arsen beat him up, and since then, he’s been in a wheelchair, unable to walk or talk; Arsen tried to strangle him to death. Not that it has affected his ability to be evil, and he’s more untouchable now than before. If you don’t know his routine, that is.
“It has everything you need, all the details. I-I tried to be as thorough as I could.” When he still doesn’t go for the paper, I lower my hand and explain, “I’m giving this to you because I remember what you said that night. About justice and vengeance, and my father, he’s… What are you doing?”
I realize the question was unnecessary because I already know what he’s doing. He’s advancing toward me. But it happened so abruptly, and there’s a strange purpose in his steps, so I don’t really know what he’s doing. Not that he answers me. He simply keeps coming, his face so intense and focused that I have no choice but to move back, the piece of paper slipping through my fingers.
And I keep moving back to make space for him. All of a sudden, I bump into something—a wall, I think—and my loud gasp echoes around the room. He stops a few feet away and I grab the wall with both hands for support.
“What are you doing?” I ask again, my voice a lot shakier than I’d like it to be.
He stares at me for a few seconds, running his eyes down my body as if appraising me for something, before looking up and saying, in a soft voice, “Don’t move.”
“What?”
Before I can take another breath, something comes flying at me. A streak of silver, glinting and sharp, that lodges itself into the wall. Just by my face. I’m frozen, my limbs cold and nerves strung tight. But my eyes move to the side and I see a knife. Stuck only a few inches away from my face.
He threw a knife at me.
Slowly, I look back at him. “Y-you… Did you just…”
He shifts on his feet, and for the first time I realize he’s barefoot. His toes are peeking out under the hem of his jeans, looking so innocent and vulnerable. And for a few crazy moments, I can’t look away from them. I can’t decide if this is real. If he really threw a knife at me when his toes are bare and looking so… harmless. I know I have lost my mind when another knife comes sailing through the air and sticks itself into the wooden wall somewhere by my shoulder. This one’s so close I can almost feel the cool steel on my skin.
I close my eyes before opening them and asking, “What… are you doing?”
“Tryna decide if you really came here to tell me to kill your daddy.” He has another knife ready to go in his hand. He flicks it between his fingers as he continues, “’Cause if so, my problem ain’t him tonight. It’s you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“ME?”
In response, he flips the knife in the air and throws it at me. This one is aimed lower and lands somewhere at my hip. I don’t look, though. I’m more fascinated with his prowess. With how deftly he handles the weapon. How I’m so scared, but I don’t want to cower. I don’t want to run and hide. I want to stand here like he said and not move. I want to let him take shots at me, straddle the line of danger and insanity. I want to savor this… feeling that he evokes in me. An intoxicating kind of fear that makes me high.
“You,” he confirms.
“Why?”
Instead of answering me right away, he goes for another knife on his desk. Without looking away from me, he picks it up and flips it in the air before catching it and replying, “’Cause I told you not to make me do things I don’t wanna do.”
“But—”
He sends the knife sailing at me, shutting me up. This one also hits somewhere down below, but again, I don’t look. I couldn’t look away from him even if the world was on fire right now. He has my entire attention. His large, tense body. His sharp features, his thick scar and those shining eyes of his. Then he speaks, and I’m done for because his voice is the roughest it’s ever been.
“You like roses?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply simply, without knowing where he’s going with it.
Something flashes through his eyes, making them shine even more, if possible. “My ma did too.”
I go still. I don’t even breathe for the next several seconds as I watch him fist and unfist his hands at his sides. Then, “White ones. She had a big garden. Out front. She’d spend hours out there, tendin’ to her roses, clippin’ leaves, turnin’ soil. She was always complainin’ about the soil. Too hard for her roses, not wet enough. Drove my daddy crazy, but”—he swallows hard—“he’d put up with it, take her to the garden center in town whenever she wanted…”