Layers Off Read Online Free PDF

running toward the ball of fire, but Julian stopped me and grasped me tightly.
    “Let me go!” I screamed until he muffled me with his hand.
    “Shh, there’s nothing you can do for them now, K.”
    “I’m not sure our security team survived that either,” Julian whispered.
    “They had to.” Tristan stood there mesmerized by the puffing smoke among mountainous flames.
    I stopped squirming in Julian’s firm grip. Both brothers had their mouths wide open, watching the fire consume the tunnel and everything within it, flames of fear reflected in their eyes. For the first time since I’d met them, they were in pure shock.
    My mother’s words warning me to be careful were the last ones I’d heard. And I couldn’t even remember my father’s. I thought it was I love you , but his lips had seemed to move after that still. He’d said something else I couldn’t quite remember – and I didn’t know why.
     

C HAPTER 4
     
    Present day, New Jersey
     
    Sometime after Tristan left, I began drifting in and out of sleep again, thrashing between the bed sheets, reliving those torturous days in captivity. The entire dream appeared behind a veil of red, as if I was looking through colored lenses. A gun blasted, and blood oozed from someone’s body as I watched them die. A pool of red spread on the floor. And then it all began fading. The pain disappeared and my memories dulled. Yes, this was exactly what I needed: to forget.
    Limpness was my sanctuary.
    My feet felt frozen as I dragged them through the snow. I wasn’t sure how I’d left Julian’s bedroom; I didn’t remember. All I knew was that I wanted the nightmare gone, and the only way to accomplish that was to numb it. The night was cold for mid November, and fresh snow covered the ground. This would be a long winter; one I didn’t want to last through. Every day was a struggle to live as I fought to erase a month of my life. The pain flew through me in patched-up memories I failed to combine. Each time I closed my eyes, it seemed I was back in the dungeon, struggling to survive. Another memory flash showed behind my lids of someone writhing in a pool of blood. In my mind I began counting the number of days since they fed me hallucinogens.
    My attention drew to the ground. I must have forgotten to put on shoes. The socks I’d slept in were wet at first, my body heat melting the snow underneath my feet, but now they were stiff: the same temperature as my skin. Chills crept up my limbs, turning the blood in my veins into slush. The sweaty strands of my hair froze into icicles. When I shot up from the nightmare I’d been drenched with sweat, and then I found myself out here, wanting the looming winter to take me away. My lips trembled, and the only sign of life was the slowing breath I could see in front of my face. Somewhere in the distance a faint voice called out my name, but I could barely hear it over my clattering teeth. Where was I?
    Feeling the last of my strength abandon me, I dropped to my knees. Yes, that definitely felt better.
    I’ll just rest for a moment.
    I lay down in the snow. It felt so much better when I didn’t have to move. My cheek pressed into the fresh powder, and the cold slowly began to ease. I could no longer feel – and that was the point. I didn’t want to know or remember that kind of pain again. This was perfect. So, so perfect.
    I’ll just close my eyes for a moment. But just when I was ready to go back to sleep, strong arms lifted me off the ground. I tried to fight, pounding against the firm chest with my fists, screaming inside my head to let me go. Yet my arms didn’t move and my mouth remained closed. I fought in my mind until the heat hit me when he carried me inside.
    “I’ve got you, Kat. You’re safe,” I remembered him saying. I hadn’t heard him say my real name in such a long time. Or perhaps it was just me wishing that things were as simple as during the first few lust-filled minutes I’d met him. The way he