Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
I can’t fix my own life, but maybe I just helped fix Monica’s.
I’m less than half a block from the clinic when a flicker of shadow on the right catches my attention. My heart jumps, and adrenaline floods my veins as two homeless-looking men step out from the narrow alley-like space between two houses, the light from the street reflecting off the gleaming blades of their knives.
“Your bag,” the taller one snarls, gesturing toward me with the knife, and even from this distance, I catch the nauseating stench of body odor, alcohol, and vomit. “Give it here, bitch. Now.”
I reach for the bag before he even finishes speaking, but my icy fingers are clumsy, and the bag falls off my shoulder.
“You fucking bitch! Give it here, I said!” he hisses, increasingly agitated, and I realize he’s on something. Meth? Coke? Either way, he’s unstable, and his partner—who started giggling like a hyena—must be too.
I have to pacify them. Quickly.
“Hold on, I’m giving it to you, I promise.” Shaking, I kneel to pick up the bag so I can hand it to them, but before I can get up, a blur of motion cuts in front of me.
Gasping, I fall back, catching myself on my palms as a tall, dark figure rams into my attackers, moving with a speed and agility that seems almost superhuman. The three of them disappear back into the shadowed alley, and I hear two panicked cries, followed by a strange wet gurgle. Then something metallic clatters on the pavement. Twice.
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I scramble backward, barely noticing the asphalt scraping the skin off my palms as my rescuer steps out of the alley, and I see the two men behind him crumple like puppets with their strings cut off. A dark liquid spreads out from under their prone bodies, and the coppery tang of blood fills the air, mixing with something even more foul.
He killed them, I realize in dazed stupor. He just fucking killed them.
The blast of terror injects me with fresh adrenaline, and I jump to my feet, a scream rising in my throat. But before it can escape, the dark figure steps toward me, and the streetlight illuminates his face.
His familiar, exotically handsome face.
“Did they hurt you?” Peter Sokolov’s voice is as hard as his metallic gaze, and once again, I find myself paralyzed, terrified yet unable to move an inch as he comes toward me, his thick eyebrows drawn into a forbidding scowl. It’s the countenance of a killer, the visage of the monster beneath the human mask, yet there’s something more there too.
Something almost like concern.
“I…” I don’t know what I was going to say because in the next moment, I find myself enfolded in his arms, held so tightly against his powerful chest that I can hardly breathe. The heat of his large body surrounds me, shielding me from the icy wind and making me realize how cold I am, how frozen inside. The full horror of what I just witnessed hasn’t settled in yet, but already I’m starting to feel numb, my thoughts scattered and sluggish as the cold burrows deeper into me, anesthetizing me against the trauma.
Shock, I diagnose on autopilot. I’m going into shock.
“Shhh, ptichka. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” Peter’s voice is low and soothing, his grip loosening until he’s cradling me with startling tenderness, and I realize the odd gasping sounds I’m hearing are coming from me. I’m struggling to breathe, my throat closing up as though during a panic attack.
No, not as though—I am having a panic attack.
He must recognize it too, because he pulls away and gazes down at me, his gray eyes narrowed in worry. “Breathe,” he commands, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “Breathe, Sara. Slowly and deeply. That’s it, ptichka. And again. Breathe…”
I follow his voice, letting him act as my therapist, and gradually, the choking sensation fades, my breathing evening out. I focus on that, on just breathing normally and not thinking, because if I think about what just happened—if I glance at the alley to the right and see the puppet-like bodies—I might pass out.
“There, that’s good.” He pulls me against him again, his big hand stroking my hair as I stand with my face pressed against his chest. “You’re okay, ptichka. Everything is okay.”
Okay? I want to laugh and scream at the same time. In what world are two dead bodies in an alley “okay?” I’m shaking now, both from the cold wind and the shock, and I know I’m on the verge of losing it again. I’m no stranger to blood and injury, and I’ve seen death in the hospital as well, but the way those two men crumpled, like they’re nothing, like they’re just sacks of meat and bones—