Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
BRAELYNN
Waking up to an ice bath surrounding my lower half, I’m convinced I’m still sleeping even though I’m shaking. I’m convinced the restraints keeping my limbs in place and the thin bars of my iron cage are nothing but a nightmare.
My teeth chatter and it’s the only thing I can hear as I slowly come to.
As my heavy eyes open and shivers run up my body, I do everything I can to move away from the cold, to rip myself free. My heart should be racing but it’s struggling to get going. As if it’s in denial or perhaps unable to run. It’s trapped like me. The sound of noisy grinding behind me widens my eyes even further. As my body is lowered deeper into the ice bath, to my waist this time, it’s far too apparent this is my reality.
Shock is brutal, but then again, so are the memories as they filter back to me in a blur.
“Help!” I shriek out, thinking I’m very much alone. My voice echoes as my dress soaks up the water, lifting the iced water to my spine. The chill is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It seeps into the very depths of my bones.
I’ve never experienced such debilitating cold before. In a panic, I search the room.
Concrete walls without a single window in sight give the space an oppressive feeling. I’m trapped in an iron cage centered within a large steel tub that’s maybe ten by four feet, one that looks aged. Apart from the machine behind me that lifts and drops the contraption I’m in, there isn’t a sound in the room to suggest anyone else is here.
The machine groans and rumbles again, the telltale eerie whine indicating movement is imminent and my heart spasms, fearing I’ll be dropped farther. “Please help me!” I scream and my words are nearly cut off by the shock of my chilled skin hitting the air.
Thankfully, my body is lifted out of the tub almost entirely, although my ass and the bottom of my feet are still submerged.
Confusion wraps itself around me. I can barely think, waking up from a fog of bewilderment to the shock of the ice bath. All I know is that I’m truly terrified.
“Help me!” My teeth chatter and my shoulders beg me to hunch over, to collapse my body upon itself and try to get warm, but I can’t move. I’m trapped. “Please, somebody!” I cry out, and tears prick as the fear of dying consumes me. The words echo in the empty room and the realization sets in: I’m going to die here.
My lungs still from the freezing cold as the grinding gears signal movement once again. “Declan!” I cry out his name, tears streaming down my face as the glacial sensation travels past where I’ve been submerged and up to my shoulders, making them convulse.
“He’s not coming, Braelynn,” a deep, masculine voice from behind me says far too calmly. Shock, and yet somehow hope, beg me to find the source of the voice. I do my best to look behind me, but I can’t turn with the restraints at my neck, keeping me bound to the cage. Immobilizing me. The memory returns as clear as if it were happening right now in front of me. Nate killed Scarlet. I turned and he knew I saw.
My heart drops and races at once, and a sickness comes over me. “Declan,” I cry out again in a sob. He has to come. He has to know I won’t tell anyone.
“I didn’t see anything,” I murmur although I wish it was louder, “I swear if anyone asks—” I’m trying. I’m trying to be heard, but there’s a ringing in my ears and I don’t know if they can hear me.
It’s silent as I’m lowered farther and I scream until the mechanism stops abruptly. Tears stream freely. I’m fucking terrified.
“You need to tell me who you ratted to and what information you gave them,” he says, cutting me off as the cage is lowered deeper into the water. Only a few inches, but still I scream from the spikes of pain that shoot through my chilled body. My toes are already numb.
“Please stop! Declan!” I can’t help but cry out for him. He has to know I would never tell. I wouldn’t ever rat.
“It will all stop when you give us a name.”
A name? What name? I wish I had a name to give. One that would stop this.
“Whatever you think I did, I swear I didn’t do it.” I can barely get the words out. My body struggles against the bindings, ripping at my skin that’s already numb with a tingling pain.
“Help me!” I cry out again as tears stream down my face. With the scream leaving me, I can barely breathe in.
“Just one name, Braelynn, and I’ll stop all of this.” I don’t know the man behind me. I don’t recognize his voice, but I swear I hear someone else. Or maybe something else; I’m light-headed from both the fear and the cold. The tears haven’t stopped either, nor the trembling of my entire body.