Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I’m sick, aren’t I? So twisted for feeling this way.
He lowers his face, his stubble, sharp and razor-like, sliding along my cheek as he says, “You done throwin’ tantrums?”
I swallow.
He flexes his grip around my throat, making me squeak. “You done or not? Say yes or no.”
I clench my eyes shut. “Y-yes.”
“Good,” he says, flexing his fingers around my throat again. “Now, I want you to listen to me, okay? You listenin’?”
“Yes.”
His chest moves with another breath. “First, there’s glass everywhere, yeah? Your fuckin’ temper tantrum made a mess. So after this, when I tell you to stay put on the bed until I clean it up, you’re going to.”
My eyes pop open. “What?”
“Is that clear?”
“Y-you…” I lick my dry lips. “You want me to stay put on the bed because there’s g-glass everywhere?”
“Yeah,” he rasps, nodding, causing his stubble to sting my skin and making me bite my lip. “You gonna do that for me?”
“Why?”
“Because you could hurt yourself.”
“Like in the… in the trunk? Before.”
“Yes,” he says, and that quickening in my belly increases.
Why would he care? What does it matter to him if I get hurt?
God, this is crazy.
I somehow manage to jerk out a nod. “Yes. I-I’ll stay p-put.”
“Good,” he praises again, and something about that makes me feel all strange in my body again. But I can’t focus on it, because he continues. “Now, I’ve got very little patience left,” he says, and I swallow again. He grazes his thumb over my pulse as he continues, “But I’m gonna tell you a story, okay, and I want you to listen carefully. Gonna do that for me too?”
My fingers dig into my bare thighs, but I nod again. “Yes.”
“Good, very good,” he murmurs, and I drag my nails across my thighs. “There’s a man in Black Rock. We call him the Quiet Mustang. Because he’s got trouble talking. When he was young, he was in a car accident. We’ve got no proof but Turners were behind it.”
My eyes are wide. “T-Turners?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice low. “They rigged the truck and caused the crash, killed everyone inside. Except the boy. He went through the window and hit his head against a tree. He lay there, bleeding for hours, before someone found him. The doctors said he hit his head so hard that all the words got knocked out and he’ll probably never speak again.”
I keep dragging my nails on my thighs. “Is that… Is that why you’re d-doing this?”
His chest shudders with something very similar to a chuckle. “No. We took care of it a long time ago. Set fire to their timber and blew up their equipment.”
“You…” I swallow again and his thumb strums my vein. “That’s a-arson.”
“Yeah,” he says, shifting his jaw and grazing his sharp stubble along my skin. “And in this case, you guys started it first.”
I shake my head. “But I don’t—”
“But that’s not the point,” he goes on, his warm breath wafting over my skin. “The point of the story is that what they say is true. When one of your senses is gone, the others work overtime. He doesn’t talk much but he can see fine. They say he can see in the dark. He can shoot in the dark too and he never misses.”
Another chill racks my body and his grip on me tightens. It feels both suffocating and like the only thing keeping me from falling apart right now.
“The point is,” he says, his voice even lower and his heat almost making me melt, “that right now, your brother’s at a livestock auction with my brother. Probably bidding for the same shit my brother’s bidding on. Because you Turners aren’t all that smart when it comes to actual cattle ranching. But when he leaves to go back to your ranch, that man, who’s already got an axe to grind with your family, is gonna be waitin’ for him a mile up the road. With a sniper rifle. And the only thing that’ll stop him from pullin’ that trigger and exacting his own revenge is you doin’ exactly what I tell you to do.”
My breaths are so fast and loud that it’s a surprise I can hear him.
But I do.
I hear him clearly.
“Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to you?” He squeezes my neck once again, making me flinch. “If you aren’t in my car in the next thirty minutes, all quiet and cooperative and ready to go where I’m takin’ you, your brother’s gonna die. You already know I’m not gonna kill you, don’t you, but I never said anything about not killin’ other people when it comes to you.”
“Get out,” he commands.
We’re in his car—the one he put me in the trunk of—and after driving for about forty-five minutes, we’re in a town called Broken Ridge. I’ve heard of it. It’s midway between Bozeman and Black Rock. I’ve never been here before, but it looks like any other town. A wide, busy street with pedestrians and parked cars and trucks. A feed store, a general store, a pharmacy. I also see a couple of coffee shops, a bank, an ATM. There is nothing here to give me a clue as to why he brought me here.