Page 4 of Broken Skulls

Maybe it’s a trick or the universe simply laughing in my face one last time.

“There is a bathtub and toilet in there with you, if you haven’t found them already. I also left you a change of clothes at the end of the bed. Close the little door on your side, and I’ll come back later.”

With a mouth full of food, I rise to my knees, trying to push at the door on his side of the small box. “Wait. Don’t go!”

I knock and knock and knock, but the voice doesn’t return.

My thoughts begin to race as I try to figure out what is going on. Am I dead? Crazy? Kidnapped?

No, that couldn’t be.

That really is a crazy thought.

“Shhh,” a masculine voice whispers in my ear. “Shhh …”

The sound of the ocean, the fall …

I did fall, didn’t I?

“Shhh …”

My hands fly to my neck. Oh no. A man.

There was a man!

Chapter Three

JD

She’s intriguing.

Listening to her ramblings as she argues with herself has told me a lot about her. It’s fascinating.

You may think this is about me fixing her … it’s not.

I don’t want to see her restored to the version of herself before she broke. Perfection is boring. You can thank my father for making, or as I like to say, allowingme to see the world this way. He broke everything he touched, including me.

I was probably sixteen when I started collecting what everyone else deemed junk. Things that no longer worked the way they were supposed to. Trust me, I know I’m unusual. But all that collecting eventually led me here.

Junkyard to most. Paradise to me.

Back to my newest acquisition.

Before you all go calling the police on me, hear me out. Three nights. After three nights, I’ll let her out. She wanted to leave this world. I want to show her what that’s like.

Right now, I don’t think she’s enjoying it very much.

“Why did you stop me!” she screams from the other side of the wall. “I wanted to die. I want to die.”

It’s not her life anymore. It’s mine … she threw herself away. One woman’s trash is another man’s treasure.

I chuckle to myself as I make my way upstairs.

When I get over to the warehouse, Jackson corners me. “Hey, you’re on Lexie duty tonight.”

“Can’t. Have Brody do it.”

Petey tosses me a beer. “Fucker is still on vacation.”

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