Witness by Rachael Orman Read Free Book Online Page A

Aaron grunted as he ran the tips of his fingers through the mess he’d made of my knee. He lifted his hand and sucked off the blood.
     
    “I didn’t run from you,” I gasped brokenly. I didn’t even know who he was at the time. I thought he was harmless.
     
    “But you did,” Aaron shouted. “Don’t lie to me.”
     
    He started mumbling to himself, then took out my other knee cap.
     
    I screamed again as pain erupted anew. Everything blacked out again before he was finished. And thankfully, finally, I got a break from the insane monster that had captured me.
     
     
     
    When I opened my eyes, I found myself in complete darkness. I was still sitting up, very likely in the same fucking chair I’d passed out in. I couldn’t see anything this time, though. All of the lights had been turned out.
     
    Not knowing if Aaron was still around only added to my fear. I could barely breathe from the pain pulsating and burning from both knees and the back of my head, but I tried to calm myself down enough to figure out how I could get away from wherever the hell it was that Aaron had taken me to. My pants were completely soaked, whether from blood, sweat or something else, I didn’t know and didn’t care. It wasn’t important; escaping was all that mattered.
     
    I heard something shuffle across the concrete floor not far from where I was, and I jumped with a gasp of agony that flared from the movement.
     
    “Shh. I’m gonna get you out of here,” Eric whispered from beside me.
     
    I looked down and squinted, trying to see him, but was still unable to see anything in the deep darkness.
     
    His hands were on my raw, bloody wrists, working at the rope to release me seconds after he spoke.
     
    “Don’t speak,” he said before I’d even opened my mouth to ask the list of questions that was compiling in my mind.
     
    Once the bindings dropped away, I moaned softly, pulling my arms around to hug my stomach. A new wave of pain washed through my arms and shoulders from having been restricted for so long.
     
    “We need to move. Now, before he comes back,” Eric murmured, grabbing my wrist and tugging.
     
    “I can’t!” I gasped in pain as I tried to stand on my busted knees. I felt more than saw Eric move closer to me before I was cradled in his arms, then we were moving quickly away from my torture chair.
     
    A metal door was suddenly in front of us. Eric moved us through it and was running swiftly away from the building while I was still trying to figure out where the hell we were. A glance up at his face told me why he could see me; he had on a set of strange looking goggles that I assumed were night vision.
     
    Once the initial shock of being saved and out of Aaron’s grasp passed, the jostling from Eric’s running started to cause agony to move to the forefront of my mind. Somehow knowing that silence was essential, I tried to bite the pain until it became too much and I dug my nails into Eric’s shoulders as I held on.
     
    “Hang on. We are almost there. Just a bit farther,” he mumbled softly, almost to himself, but it was clearly meant for me.
     
    I saw a car come into view over the vast expanse of nothingness. How I hadn’t spotted it sooner, I didn’t know, but it was there and it had to be where we were escaping to. I held my breath as we drew closer and closer to my salvation.
     
    A loud roar had me jumping in Eric’s arms and looking around frantically. What the hell had caused that noise? Eric tensed as well, which only caused me to flip out that much more.
     
    “Fuck, I wanted to get you to safety before I had to deal with that asshole,” Eric mumbled, but kept moving.
     
    A single, bright white light was heading straight for us from where we had come from.
     
    “Something is coming,” I gasped as I looked over Eric’s shoulder at the approaching light.
     
    Eric sped up, but was breathing hard and he was likely exhausted from the run with me in his arms, so it wasn’t by