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)
The coffee maker gurgles to life across the room. We can hear Hailey moving around the kitchen, the soft clink of mugs being pulled from cabinets. Domestic sounds. Normal sounds. Completely at odds with the fact that we’re prisoners waiting for a madwoman to decide if we live or die.
“How bad was the dream?” Liam asks. “Scale of one to ten.”
“Solid seven.”
“Seven’s rough.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“I know.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Remember Marjah? You didn’t sleep for three days after that convoy hit.”
“I slept.”
“Sitting up with your eyes half-open doesn’t count.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“You were hallucinating from exhaustion. You called our CO ‘Mom’ during a briefing.”
The laugh surprises me, rusty and genuine. “I called him ‘ma’am.’ Not Mom.”
“Nah, we all heard Mom.”
From the kitchen, Hailey calls out, “Are you two actually bonding, or is this some kind of trauma-off?”
“Bonding,” Liam says. “Through shared suffering. It’s a military thing.”
“I’m winning the trauma-off, though,” I add. “I jumped on a grenade.”
“It was a dud.”
“I didn’t know that when I jumped on it.”
Hailey crosses back to us, three mugs balanced precariously in her hands. “I’m sorry, you jumped on a grenade?”
“Like a golden retriever diving after a tennis ball,” Liam says, taking his mug from her. “Very noble. Very idiotic. Very Knox.”
“I saved three people.”
“You got a concussion and cried when they gave you a medal.”
“I did not cry.”
“Your eyes were definitely wet.”
“That was dust. From the explosion.”
“The explosion from the dud grenade that didn’t explode?”
I open my mouth to argue and realize I’ve been thoroughly outmaneuvered. Hailey is grinning, and Liam looks insufferably pleased with himself.
“You’re both the worst,” I say, taking my coffee.
“And yet here we are, trapped together.” Hailey settles onto the bed cross-legged, somehow managing to position herself exactly between us without touching either one. The distance feels intentional. Careful. “So. Day two. What’s the plan?”
The question lands like a weight. Day two. Eight more days until Marlena’s deadline. Eight more days to figure out how to get out of here without handing over a twenty-million-dollar diamond or watching one of us die.
“We keep looking for weaknesses,” I say. “Check the windows again, test the door hinges, look for anything we might have missed.”
“We did that yesterday,” Liam points out. “The windows are industrial-grade. The door might as well be a vault. Short of finding a blowtorch in one of these cabinets, we’re not breaking out.”
“Yesterday doesn’t count. Yesterday we were half-drugged and at each other’s throats before we’d even finished our first cup of coffee. Today the fog has lifted and we’re not swinging at each other, which puts us ahead.”
“Then we look harder.”
“Or,” Liam says, and there’s something careful in his voice, “we consider the other option.”
“No.”
“Knox—”
“We’re not giving her the diamond.”
“I’m just saying we should discuss it. Weigh the pros and cons. She said she’d let us go if—”
“She said a lot of things.” I set my mug down harder than I mean to. “She also said she’d kill one of us, without blinking. You really want to bet our lives on the word of someone who monologues about her emotional wellness journey while threatening murder?”
He opens his mouth like he’s going to push harder, then seems to think better of it.
“Fine,” he says, but the word sounds hollow. “We look harder.”
Hailey’s watching the exchange with sharp eyes, her gaze bouncing between us like she’s trying to read something neither of us is saying out loud.
“What?” I demand.
“Nothing.” She takes a long sip of her coffee. “We just think maybe you could take a breath. That’s all.”
“I’ll take a breath when we’re out of here.”
“You’ll give yourself a stroke before we’re out of here if you don’t calm down.”
“I’m perfectly calm.”
Liam snorts. “You’ve got a vein pulsing in your forehead.”
“That’s my thinking vein.”
“That’s your ‘about to have an aneurysm’ vein. I’ve seen it before. Usually right before you do something stupid and heroic.”
“I don’t do stupid.”
“Grenade,” they say in unison.
I throw a pillow at Liam’s head. He catches it, laughing, and for a second everything feels almost normal. Almost okay.
Then the laughter fades.
“Okay,” Hailey says. “New plan. Knox works out his anxiety with push-ups instead of giving himself an ulcer. Liam cooks something for breakfast. I pretend to read that book I’ve been failing to read since we got here. We revisit the escape plan at noon. Deal?”
“That’s not a plan,” I say. “That’s just . . . killing time.”
“Fine. So we need another way out.”
Liam catches my eye. Tilts his head toward the ceiling. I follow his gaze to the smoke detector above the kitchen area, and he raises his eyebrows. Message received.
He stands, stretches like he’s just working out the stiffness from sleeping on the floor, and wanders toward the kitchen. Casual. Bored. He runs water in the sink, opens a cabinet, lets it bang shut. Noise cover.