Never Die Alone (A Bentz/Montoya Novel Book 8) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her voice tremulous with fear.
    “He’s dead.”
    “You killed him?”
    “Yes! Move it! ”
    “Good. Twisted psycho-freak!”
    The old door scraped as Zoe tugged it open. Then she led her sister into the dark night. The cabin was dilapidated, ready to topple onto the sparse, weedy clearing around it. A forest surrounding the small patch of ground seemed to block out any light. From here, there were no visible neighbors, no signs of civilization. If only she could hear the hum of traffic on a highway or the clack of a train on tracks or the deep moan of a foghorn on the river. But there was no sound beyond their tattered breathing, the steady patter of rain, and the sough of wind rushing through branches of nearby trees. Then a dog, as if disturbed from slumber, gave a sharp “woof.”
    “Where are we?” Chloe whimpered, sounding as if she might start crying again.
    “Don’t know. Come on!” Grabbing her sister’s hand, she started running along what seemed to be a path cutting through a dense thicket of trees. The night was warm and wet, rain falling softly, summer in Louisiana evident in the earthy smell and dense vegetation. From somewhere in the distance she thought she sensed the roll of a river, the smell of water.
    There was no moonlight. Clouds blocked some of the stars and snuffed out most of the light.
    “We . . . we need to call someone,” Chloe said as they sprinted.
    “Good idea. Got your cell?”
    “No, but—” The slumbering dog was now awake and barking wildly.
    “Neither do I. Just keep moving.”
    “But my feet . . .”
    “Yeah, I know.” Zoe’s feet hurt, too. They were running barefoot through the woods, not a stitch on, probably getting bitten all over. Although the lane was now overgrown with tall grass, the gravel long driven into the ground, the twin tire tracks were still visible. Zoe stubbed her toe and bit back a curse. The weedy lane had to lead somewhere, she figured, to a county road or private drive or something. Their only course was to follow its winding path through the looming trees.
    Every once in a while she glanced over her shoulder, worried that somehow the freak would escape from his own prison and break free, running them to the ground. Impossible, she told herself. You killed him. You’re a murderess.
    “Good.”
    “What? What’s good?” Chloe asked in the darkness, her fingers still clutched in Zoe’s hand.
    “Nothing.”
    “Oh.” Disappointment. “Shit!” Chloe squealed and ducked as a creature of the night flew by. “Oh, God, was that a bat?”
    “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
    “An owl. That was it. Tell me it was an owl.”
    Who cared? “Sure. An owl. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to find someone to help us.”
    “We’re naked!”
    “I know. That’s the least of our problems right now.” Zoe kept pressing forward, hoping beyond hope that they would find safety and that the abomination who had captured them was dead. Why the hell had the freak kidnapped them? What was he doing at the workbench, cutting up the wire and ribbon? And why did he sing that stupid birthday song? Nothing made any sense. How did he even know it was their birthday? Who the fuck was he? “Come on,” she stepped up the pace, her mind racing faster than her bare feet. Obviously they’d been targeted because of their birthdays. He had known. How? Had he been following them? Stalking them?
    Happy Birthday, dear twinsies . . . Wasn’t that what he’d sung? As if the two of them being twins and sharing a birthday was significant. Holy shit, what was going on? “Hurry, Chloe,” she whispered urgently as the forest seemed to close in on them. It was her twenty-first birthday and, for the first time in her life, Zoe Denning personally felt the presence of evil in the world.
     
     
    Pain screamed through his neck and throat.
    An even deeper anguish came from the knowledge that the bitches had escaped.
    For the first time ever, he’d lost both victims. He closed