Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
I hated that damn voice in my head. It sounded too much like my brother, but it was right. I’d really fucked this up.
I chose a direction and started wandering. It grew darker and darker, but I still hadn’t found anything besides horses, a few scraggly looking goats, a gigantic pig that didn’t care for my presence, and a hell of a lot of open fields. I wanted to cross them. It would be far faster than going around them, but I couldn’t stop thinking of this book I’d read as a kid where a boy had wandered into a pasture and nearly been gored to death by a bull.
There could easily be a bull in one of these fields. I wasn’t going to chance it.
A loud screech made me freeze. What the fuck was that? An owl? A mountain lion? Didn’t they screech like a person? Was it something worse?
No, just because my nonna used to tell me about all the monsters that lived in the woods didn’t mean any of that was real.
I heard a crunch like footsteps. Fuck, was someone after me? I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone. What would these cowboys do if they found someone on their land? Shoot first and ask questions later? Wasn’t that what my father would have done if someone was on his property?
I really needed to find my way out of there, but if I couldn’t do that in daylight, how the hell was I supposed to do it now?
When I was about to give up and just lie down on the ground and surrender myself to whatever creatures wanted to eat me, I saw a cabin.
No light was coming from it, and if I was lucky, that meant there was no one there. I could sleep in the cabin, and in the morning, I’d figure out how to get away.
I moved as quietly as I could while approaching the cabin, but I was far from silent. It was a good thing I did all my sneaking up on people in cities or villages. There was no way in hell not to make noise in these damn woods.
I peered into a window. There was enough moonlight to allow me to make out the shapes of furniture but not much else. Obviously, someone either lived there or stayed there occasionally, but was it empty now? I might even have a bed to sleep in like I was fucking Goldilocks. I just had to be gone before any bears came home.
Although, if it was the right kind of bear… I might not mind. A good hard fuck would take my mind off the way I’d screwed everything up.
I moved slowly toward another window and looked in on a small kitchen. If there was a stove and fridge, then there was electricity, which meant I might even get some coffee. Maybe there was running water too. Could I be that lucky?
I’d been dreading the idea of taking a shit on the ground like some kind of animal or camper.
I moved around to the porch and took each of the three steps slowly. I was glad I made it a habit to always carry a lock-picking kit. I might not be armed, but I wasn’t completely helpless.
I peered in the front window as I pulled the kit from my pocket. Without warning, I was slammed up against the glass, and something—which I was very afraid was a gun—poked me in the back of my head.
“Who the hell are you?” a gruff voice demanded.
How the hell had this man snuck up on me? I’d really thought it was impossible to move around out here without making any noise. I didn’t dare try to turn to see him, but I got a sense of his size even without looking. Papa Bear had found me before I ever got into his bed.
“I said who the hell are you?”
I realized the man’s hand was shaking. He wasn’t as confident as he wanted me to believe, but that also meant I was more likely to get shot by accident.
“I thought this cabin was unoccupied. I’ll move on.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’m not here to harm you.”
He snorted. “You’d never succeed if you were. You don’t seem to know anything about sneaking around.”
I resented that. I thought I’d been pretty damn quiet.
“So you were planning to break in but not hurt anyone?” he asked.
“I wasn’t planning to take anything. I just… need a place to stay.” I didn’t think appealing to his sense of sympathy was going to work, but it was worth a try.
“You’re lucky I didn’t just shoot you.”
“Yeah, I am. If you let me go, I promise you won’t see me again.”
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“I got lost.”
“You don’t have any business being close to this cabin.”