Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I think about the two of them together. Their history I don’t fully understand, the tension that runs underneath everything they say to each other. Knox pinning Liam against the wall, and the heat that flared in both their eyes before they remembered I was watching.
Marlena sees it too. That’s why she put us here. One bed, one room, nowhere to go. She wants to watch us circle each other, wants to see what happens when the pressure builds and something breaks.
I won’t give her the satisfaction.
But lying here alone, listening to them breathe in the darkness, I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to not be alone. Knox’s body warm against my back. Liam’s hand on my hip. Both of them here, with me, in this bed that’s too big for one person.
I close my eyes and try to make my brain shut up.
From the couch, I hear Knox shift again. A soft exhale.
Then Liam’s voice, barely audible. “You awake?”
A pause. “Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Silence. The fire pops, sending a brief flare of light across the ceiling.
“This is fucked,” Liam says quietly.
“Yep,” Knox agrees.
“You really think she’ll do it? Kill one of us?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Yeah,” Knox says. “I do.”
More silence. I hold my breath, not wanting them to know I’m listening.
“Then maybe I’m right,” Liam says. “Maybe we should just tell her.”
“And maybe she kills us anyway once she has what she wants.”
Knox doesn’t say anything else. The quiet stretches out, filled only with the wind and my own heartbeat loud in my ears.
“Get some sleep,” Knox says. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Liam says. “Tomorrow.”
The cabin settles into silence.
I lie there in the dark, in my too-soft sheets, and think about ten days. About Christmas Eve and deadlines and a woman who’s working on her impulse control.
About the two men across the room, awake like I am, carrying the same weight.
Tomorrow we’ll plan. Tomorrow we’ll strategize. Tomorrow we’ll try to find a way out of this that doesn’t end with one of us dead.
But tonight, all I can do is listen to them breathe and wish I wasn’t alone.
Chapter Nineteen
Hailey
Marlena Kade is a psychopath with impeccable taste in bedding. That’s the first coherent thought I have when I wake up alone, wrapped in sheets I want to hate but can’t.
Morning light streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making the snow outside glitter like crushed diamonds. I lie there for a moment, listening. Knox and Liam are already up, their low voices drifting from somewhere near the kitchen. The cabin is one big open space—living area flowing into kitchen flowing into the bedroom nook where I’m currently cocooned—so I can hear every word even if I can’t make them out.
Whatever they’re saying, it doesn’t sound friendly.
I drag myself out of bed and find clothes laid out on the dresser. More of Marlena’s handiwork.
No. No no no.
I hold up the sweater. It’s pink. Not even a cool dusty rose or something I could pretend is ironic. It’s the color of cotton candy. Of baby showers. Of everything I’ve spent my adult life avoiding.
The jeans are fine, I guess. Light wash, which is a crime, but at least they’re not bedazzled. There’s a cream-colored cardigan as backup, cashmere and delicate and absolutely not anything I would ever voluntarily put on my body.
I dig through the dresser drawers hoping for something—anything—in black. A T-shirt. Socks. A goddamn scrunchie.
Nothing. Every item is soft and pastel and makes me want to set something on fire. Marlena has curated an entire wardrobe of things specifically designed to make me look like I’m about to brunch in the Hamptons.
I pull on the pink sweater because the alternative is freezing, and it fits perfectly. Of course it does. The woman kidnapped us with personalized wardrobes.
When I pad toward the kitchen, Knox is at the counter, a steak knife in his hand. He’s not cutting anything. He’s working the blade into the window frame, trying to wedge it into the seal.
Liam sits on the arm of the couch, watching him with his arms crossed.
Knox glances up when I approach, and his mouth twitches.
“Nice sweater.”
“Shut up.”
“Very soft. Very . . .” He tilts his head. “Cute.”
“I will stab you with that knife.”
Liam’s watching me now too, and there’s a grin spreading across his face that I don’t like at all. “Is that pink?”
“It’s the only option. Everything in that dresser looks like it belongs to a sorority girl.”
“You look like you’re about to ask me if I want to join your book club.” Liam’s grin widens. “Maybe bake some muffins. Organize a charity fun run.”
“I hate you both.”
“The color really brings out your eyes,” Knox adds, completely deadpan.
“I hope Marlena kills you first.”
I grab a mug from the cabinet and pour myself coffee from the pot someone already made, trying to ignore the fact that I can see my reflection in the window and I look like a J.Crew catalog threw up on me.