Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
And now I wait. This is how I wanted it from the start. I made him promise to let me do this part, and he only agreed because he jerked me around with Shane. I want to be the one that pushes the button. I want my thumb to blow that generator, and I want it to be my fault when Redmond gets vaporized.
With the amount of explosives Liam cleverly hid inside the generators, anyone standing within twenty feet is going to end up nothing more than pink mist and memory.
I figure Finn doesn’t mind that my job is slightly less dangerous.
I sit behind the wheel and wait. My knee jogs up and down nervously. Beside me on the passenger seat, there’s a small array of buttons, each one corresponding to a different generator. When Finn calls it in, he’ll tell me which to push.
And if I don’t do it fast enough or if something goes wrong on my end, he’s got a failsafe that’ll light them all up at once, just in case.
Finn’s fast and sure as he hurries across the street. I wait, stomach knotted. I’m not very patient. I’ve never been good at waiting. Even when I was a kid, I could barely sit still for ten seconds, which obviously pissed off my brothers to no end. They enjoyed teaching me how to stay in one place, especially Redmond. One time when I was small, maybe only six or seven at most, he made me sit on a chair with my feet in a bucket of ice water. If you get up before five minutes, I’m going to hit you. He said it was to teach me self-control. All it taught me was to hate cold showers. He hit me anyway, even when I made it through my time.
I’m looking forward to pressing the button. Every part of me itches to do it. I want to hear the explosion and know that I’m the one who ruined him. I’m the one who ended his life. It’s a shame he won’t ever know it was me, but that won’t matter. He’ll be dead and I won’t.
I look up to check on Finn’s progress, but another car comes down the street. My heart stutters when it slows and pulls up to the construction site’s gate. I stare, not believing it, as Red appears to let the BMW through.
I grab my walkie in a panic and push the button. “Finn, hold on. We need to get out of here.” I wait, but only get static in response. “Finn, do you read me? Over? We need to get out of here!”
More static. I flip through the channels, sweat dripping down my spine, but he never replies. What the hell is happening? We didn’t test these stupid things over long distances, which was obviously a mistake.
If I don’t reply when he calls me, he’s going to wait ten seconds before he blows the generators himself.
And if that happens…
He’s going to kill my mom.
Because that was her car just now.
I shove the door open and jump out. Finn’s nowhere nearby. I don’t know what to do. I have no idea where he went to keep an eye out for Redmond. He might still be on this side of the fence or he could have jumped it to get a better view. That’s what I would do if I were him. It’s the only way to guarantee a kill… and the perfect show.
I can’t just run over and start screaming. If I do that, Mom and Redmond will hear me. They’ll know I was lurking out here. They’ll realize something’s going on. That would ruin everything and we’d never get our revenge on the rest of my family.
But I can’t let Finn kill my mother.
I sprint toward the fence. I’m breathing hard and my hands are shaking. I find a good spot and heave myself up, climbing as fast as I can. I need to be quieter, but there’s no time. I get to the top and nearly fall over. My foot catches on one of the posts and I barely manage to right myself in time to land on my feet. I stagger and my knees scrape on the dirt, but I’m not hurt.
I look around desperately, but there’s nothing, I don’t know where Finn is, and Redmond might be near a generator already with my mother in tow, and what the hell is my mother doing here anyway, and oh, god, I can’t let her die, even if she was complicit in what happens, she’s still an innocent victim herself, and oh, god—
Suddenly, light floods the construction site.
I throw my arms over my face, gasping at the sudden brightness.
They caught me. Redmond somehow knew this was a trap. He lured me in here and now he’s got a spotlight on me and soon—