Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
But then why can’t I shake this feeling that he’s angry?
Suddenly, the door at the top of the stairs opens up again, and Raymond slowly comes down the stairs. There’s a container in his hands, and it draws all the attention away from his gloomy face. I find myself hovering toward the bars, and when he opens the lid, my mouth begins to water.
Bread.
And meat.
But the bread smells so nice my stomach immediately begins to growl.
“Don’t know what you did to please him, but …” Raymond mutters, chucking the bread through the bars. “Here you go.”
I manage to catch it and chomp down on it before he has a chance to steal it away from me.
The meat is slung in as well and lands right in front of Beast, but he makes no effort to reach for it whatsoever.
“Beast. Dinnertime,” Raymond says, laughing. “You’re gonna need it for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” My eyes light up. “What’s tomorrow?”
A smirk grows on Raymond’s face. “Yeah, I bet you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
This bread suddenly tastes a lot more sour.
“Too bad we don’t explain our business to a goddamn prisoner,” Raymond spits. “Now be a good fucking girl, shut up, and do what you’re told while you’re here.”
“Don’t talk to her like that.”
Beast’s voice alone already brings goose bumps to my skin.
I can almost feel his eyes burn into my back.
“Fuck you,” Raymond growls at him. “You should be glad I’m still feeding you after what you did.”
He slams the bars, making me jolt back with the bread still in my mouth.
“I’ll see you at dawn,” he adds with a sneer, then he marches back upstairs, slamming the door shut.
I munch down on the bread, and my stomach finally doesn’t feel like a gaping hole anymore. But the Beast is still sitting in his corner, gazing at the piece of meat like it’s his nemesis.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He simply frowns, and it makes me feel like it’s me that’s the problem.
I pause, biting down on the bread. “Did I do something?”
His eyes flick to me, and it takes him a while to respond. “No. But I did.”
Now I’m even more confused.
I sit down on the ground too, and look at him the same way he’s looked at me.
Is this about what Raymond said? “What happens tomorrow?”
Beast merely shakes his head, and my stomach drops. Even though the food in my hands smells appetizing, it’s suddenly become hard to even look at.
“Are you hunting my papa again?” I ask.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to,” he replies with a grumpy tone.
I suddenly feel cold. Like this cell isn’t big enough for the two of us.
“What if you just decide to run instead?” My voice is a lot louder than normal, but I can’t stop the emotions from flowing out.
The room fills with a kind of heaviness I find hard to describe. Intangible, but present nonetheless.
He points at his neck. “The collar. It activates instantly when I go out of a certain range.”
I lower my eyes and sigh.
“What?”
“I just don’t want you to kill my father.”
His eyes narrow, and he finally reaches for the meat and takes a giant bite. “I don’t either, but I do what must be done.”
“What must be done?” I parrot, incensed he’d talk about it so easily as if his life means nothing.
“I didn’t choose this,” he says.
“I didn’t either, yet here we are,” I reply, also taking a big bite, despite the fact that I’m nauseous from the clear admittance he’s going to try to kill my father again.
I know I promised Lex I would help him find my father, but I only said that to get him to stop. I don’t actually want my father to get hurt or die. But Beast … he’ll surely kill my father without question because that’s his job.
But I don’t want the conversation to die out either now that I’ve finally gotten him to talk instead of grunt.
“How did you ever end up in this cell?”
His brow rises. “Does it matter?”
He sounds annoyed. Still, I feel like if I’m going to try to persuade him to help me get out of here, I need to know more about him. I need to know if I can trust him.
“I just feel like …” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “If you kiss people, you should get to know them.”
He swallows a piece of meat and pauses. Seconds feel like hours as his lips part. “I was young. In the streets. Then I was snatched.”
“Snatched?” My eyes widen. “As in … taken? Off the streets?”
He nods as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I was sold. Trained. Hurt.” He shows me the scars on the back of his arm and points at his face. “Taught how to kill.”
“Like an assassin,” I say.