Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I can’t risk it. It makes me sick to turn my back on him, that’s not the kind of person I am. But I’m practically free. If Hattie came up instead of Ike, I don’t know that she’d kill me, but my life would be over even if she didn’t.
No. I can’t worry about Ike when Hattie Miller is on the hunt and she’s got my scent. I leave the chair in the door and force myself to think clearly. I think that elevator is the only way up here. At least the only convenient way up here. Which might not buy me a lot of time, but it should be enough.
I look down at my hand, because this is when I realize that Ike pushed something into it at the last second. It’s a phone, but there’s a piece of white notebook paper wrapped around it and secured with a rubber band.
I take the rubber band off and open up the note.
It’s a letter to Lowyn.
Dear Lowyn,
These are my dying words and I want them to be for your eyes only.
I suck in a breath and stop reading.
His dying words!
I fold the paper back up.
Ike’s not coming. He knew he wasn’t gonna make it. He knew we’d get caught and still, he helped me. Everything he just did was to get me out of here so I could give this note to Lowyn.
No, Clover! You’re supposed to save Riggs!
Holy shit! Riggs! I forgot about him!
I am not at the top of my game here. I am faltering because I can’t hold on to all the important information Ike gave me! I grab my hair, trying to pull myself together. I need to save Riggs! That’s the whole reason Ike got me out.
Collin is gonna kill him.
My head snaps to the side when I notice movement on one of the monitors. It’s a… an armored truck? Pulling in to a driveway. Is that… I walk up to the monitor, pushing my face up to the grainy green images as I squint my eyes, trying to decipher what’s happening. Is that Lowyn’s house?
Collin Creed gets out of the driver’s side of the truck as Amon hops out of the passenger. They both go around the back and open up the doors.
A moment later, they are pulling something out of the truck.
It’s a body.
I actually gasp and then start crying. Because it’s Riggs. I’m too late. Collin has already killed him.
But then Collin kicks the body and it moves.
Riggs isn’t dead yet! I still have a chance.
But then Riggs gets to his feet and they start pushing him towards the back of the house where the woods are.
They’re taking him up there. That’s where they’ll do it. High up in the hills so no one can find his body.
No. No, no, no. I did not come all this way to just give up now.
I look down at the phone, shove the paper into my pocket, and bring the home screen up. I expect it to be locked, but it’s not.
Of course it’s not. Ike gave me this phone to use! I tap it away and pull up the contacts. Does he have Collins’ number in here?
Oh, you bet he does, Clover. Because Ike thought this whole thing through very carefully. I watch Collin on the screen as I press his number, then wait. Smiling.
Just in time. I’m gonna save Riggs just in the nick of time.
But all I get is a beeping noise. I look down at the phone and realize there’s no service.
Well, of course there’s no service, Clover! You’re still underground!
I glance back up at the monitors, but none of the men are in the one I was looking at. I scan the other and then there he is. Riggs. He looks up at the camera like he knows it’s there. And my heart sinks. Because that look on his face has no hope in it.
“No. No, no, no.” I say it out loud this time. “You hang on, Riggs. I’m coming.”
I look around for the door out of here, find it, throw it open, and then pause at the bottom of a steep stairwell.
There’s a door at the top.
Is there anyone on the other side of that door?
Ike must’ve been certain there wouldn’t be, or he would not have sent me here. At the very least, if there is someone up there, he would’ve made sure they would be people who would help me.
It’s foolish to trust this man. He kidnapped Lowyn. He threatened her, probably hit her, since she did have a mark on her face when Collin brought her to the Dixie Yonder after all that shit happened. But I didn’t ask, so I don’t know for sure.
Still, Ike meant for me to get away, if only so I could deliver his final words in the form of a letter to Lowyn. I didn’t read it, but I don’t have to. It’s an apology. And the reason he helped me escape was to make sure that Lowyn accepted that apology, even if he was too dead to appreciate it.