Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“Callum. It’s me.”
There was no response from the male. Nothing but that blank stare at the ceiling and the autonomic blinking, which was somehow scarier than any moaning in pain could have been.
“I’ve got you,” Apex said hoarsely. “I’m going to get you out.”
From deep within him, a sense of purpose animated his body and strengthened him. Using the knife on his belt, he cut through the leather restraints, and when the wolven was free…
There was no response at all. Callum didn’t look over, he didn’t move, he didn’t respond. He just laid exactly where he had been with his arms and legs splayed out from his naked torso, as if he were still tied down.
As those eyes just continued to stare up at the ceiling, it was as if he were nothing but a shell, his soul gone from the living husk that had seated it.
“Callum…”
With gentle hands, Apex reached out—
The flinching and pulling away was instinctual, the last reflexes of survival kicking in, nothing that seemed conscious.
“Here, I’ve got you,” he whispered to the male.
Sitting himself on the edge of the bed, he shifted Callum into his lap, and as the wolven’s head changed angle, he expected to finally see some recognition. There was none. The wolven just stared at the floor, as if his moonbeam-colored eyes were frozen in the forward position and whatever crossed their path was what he saw.
Apex brushed the sweat-matted white hair back. And as he stared down into the face he had seen in his memories with such clarity, blood from his own head wound fell on Callum’s cold cheek.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You’re safe now—”
An explosion loud enough to sting the ears, powerful enough to shake the foundations of the hospital, erupted from across the way—and the door leading out into the hallway fell forward into the private quarters with a tremendous bang.
As the smoke cleared, there were two males standing on the threshold.
Mayhem. And the Jackal.
As Apex looked across the debris field of weapons, ammo, and tactical supplies, he had a thought he should feel liberated or something. Especially as the pair raced in with guns—and was that a cell phone in the Jackal’s hand?
They came over and gave him and Callum a look-see—but their eyes kept returning to what was happening over on the floor. The head of the guards was still disintegrating, the venom, or whatever the hell it was, moving down from what was left of her face and beginning to eat her body away as well.
“She’s dead,” Apex said unnecessarily, as the Jackal put the cell phone up to his ear.
To protect Callum’s privacy, Apex reached out and pulled a blanket across the male’s naked body… and that was when he noted the bruising where the restraints had been, and the scratches, and the other patterns consistent with a male having been used sexually and as a blood source.
“You’re going to be okay, Callum,” he whispered. “Reinforcements are coming.”
People offered aid to him, made plans, and were reunited in the Jackal’s case. But as if Callum’s vegetative state was communicable, Apex found that he had nothing really to say in response and couldn’t really train his eyes on anything other than whatever happened to pass through his line of sight.
Some rescues were too late.
Even if the person remained alive.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
On the whole, V loved being right. And the good news was, ninety-nine percent of the time, he was correct about everything so it was a state of self-satisfaction he enjoyed a lot.
In the case of the prison camp’s new location, he had been spot on with the logic about finding it—but the actual infiltration by the Brotherhood had been a total letdown. For one, he wished he could have used his daggers a little more. A lot more. The larger bummer, however, was that he had packed plenty of C-4 plastic explosives. It had been a while since he’d blown something up, and he’d been ready for all the false-sun, Fourth of July show.
And then there had been the satisfaction of just ripping the place apart.
’Cuz, yeah, fuck the glymera.
Instead, as he’d arrived at the abandoned tuberculosis hospital, and walked in a back entry thanks to the Jackal holding a secured door open, he had all of the satisfaction of being the brainiac in the room, but none of the workout or the pyrotechnics—
“What the fuck is that.”
As he stepped into some kind of bedchamber/war room, there was a mess on the floor that had decomposing body written all over it. The slop appeared to be made up of bodily fluids and some bone, although the latter seemed to be turning to liquid before his eyes. There also appeared to be a trail of the goo across the bare floor, one that snaked around a bed that had a very naked male being cradled by a guy with one hell of a head wound on it. On the far side, the path of blood disappeared into a small hole in the corner down at the floor.