Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Rex opened the laptop and began logging on to the school site where the draft of his essay was saved. His “potential” was out there, and he meant to move toward it.
He put his hands on the keyboard as his mom’s music started blasting from her room—Gloria Gaynor attesting melodically that she’d survive.
He turned his head for a moment and gazed out the window at the backyard, no more than a dirt lot scattered with weeds and surrounded by a short chain-link fence.
You’re Rex, right?
Sure, he would do his due diligence toward ensuring he had a bright future ahead of him. But couldn’t he also improve himself in the meantime? Why wait? He controlled his own destiny, didn’t he? That meant next year, but it also meant tomorrow.
He pictured Cami Cortlandt, the way her face lit up and her eyes sparkled when she laughed. And he wondered what she was doing right that second as he was sitting across town, staring at his barren yard and picturing her smile.
Chapter Five
Every muscle in Cami’s body was tensed with fear. Her heart pounded as she listened to the garage door lifting and her father’s distant whistling as he strolled toward the house, where he’d enter into the mudroom the same way she had.
She wanted to screech in terror, to warn him, but she was helpless to do anything but wait and pray that he’d be able to fight the two men off that she knew lay in wait just beyond the door.
But then she had an idea. It was Elle’s bedroom that was over the mudroom, not hers, but she was just down the hall and maybe . . . She lifted her butt off the mattress and then slammed it down again, repeating the movement so that the bed came off the ground and then pounded back to the floor. Cami did it again, and then again, tears blurring her vision and sweat breaking out everywhere on her body. She heard her dad’s whistle falter as his steps slowed, and she sucked back a sob that had no way to escape, scared that she was at risk of choking herself. But her dad had heard the commotion and, at the very least, was maybe a little more on guard now. Maybe it would be the thing that would mean the difference between those men taking him purely by surprise and him suspecting something was off.
Suddenly, Trig raced into the room, obviously having climbed the stairs so quickly and quietly that she hadn’t heard him coming. He flew at her, slamming his body over hers so that her movements stopped, the bed remaining solidly on the floor. Oh God, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. His chest was over her face, his arms clamped around her body, and she was helpless to move, struggling merely to take in air through her nostrils. All she could do was listen as her dad’s footsteps resumed before the downstairs door opened. Then her body jolted when she heard him yell in surprise. There was a loud scuffle, and despite her lack of oxygen, Cami screamed behind her gag, the sound emerging as a soft buzz, muffled further by Trig’s shirt.
There was one final loud slam, and then all noise ceased from below. In her head, Cami was still screaming, though she’d lost the capacity to force air from her lungs, the only oxygen being pulled into her body a tiny trickle through her nose. Inky dots clouded her vision, expanding and leaking into one another. But then suddenly Trig’s body was off hers, and she leaned her head back, pulling in as much air as she could, the ink clearing as light seemed to explode all around her.
Oh please. Please let the other monster be lying dead on the kitchen floor. But if he was, wouldn’t her dad have called their names by now? Trig moved slowly and quietly across her room to the door, leaning around it to peer into the hallway and over the stairs, obviously not wanting to call AJ’s name and alert her dad to his presence if AJ was in fact unconscious.
“Trig?” AJ’s voice rose from downstairs, and that scream rose in Cami’s mind again. Hot tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and ran into her ears as Trig let out a sharp exhale and exited her room. Oh Dad. Oh Dad. Was he the one lying dead on the kitchen floor? Or had they just knocked him out like they’d done to her and probably Elle and their mother too? Her sweet sister and mom, who she knew were experiencing the same devastation as they lay tied up in their rooms, wailing silently behind their taped lips.
Cami heard Trig and AJ talking downstairs but couldn’t make out the words. She heard the sound of what she imagined was a body being dragged and then their voices from farther away, coming from the study down the hall, if she was tracking them correctly.