The Prophet Read Online Free PDF

him on a lonely street at night, she wouldn’t have felt the least bit threatened by him.
    His quiet appearance gave her a boost in confidence, and she said, “Please, just let me go, and we can forget that any of this ever happened. No harm, no foul. You don’t want to go down a road that you can’t come back from.”
    His gaze strayed away from hers, but then he said, “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
    He reached into a small leather bag sitting near the Coleman lamp and brought out two clamp-like devices that seemed vaguely familiar. He moved toward her.
    “What are you doing? Please don’t—”
    Her words became a scream as his left hand grabbed her face with surprising strength. Using his thumb and forefinger, he held her eyelids open. She tried to blink and pull away, but the restraints held her in place. With his right hand, he inserted one device into her eye, and she remembered where she had seen such an instrument before. Her eye doctor had used something similar to hold her lids open during her last visit.
    Sandra bucked and cried out for help, but she could do little to prevent him from repeating the procedure with her left eye. Tears rolled down both her cheeks and clouded her vision, but she was unable to blink them away.
    The man reached back toward the leather bag, and she caught the glint of something shiny in his hand.
    “Please don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want.”
    “There’s no point in screaming. No one can hear you. I realize you’ll try anyway, but I would suggest that you use your last breaths for a more useful purpose.”
    His hand moved toward her leg, and Sandra saw the scalpel. Her screams reverberated off the metal walls. A terrible pain sliced through her inner thigh. Then he leaned in close, and his eyes burrowed deep into hers.
    “I’ve just made a deep diagonal incision through your femoral artery. It’s one of the primary paths of blood flow. You’ll be dead within a moment unless I seal the wound.”
    Sobs racked her body. “Please, no. I—”
    “I’ll stop the bleeding and release you if you answer my questions honestly.”
    “Anything you want! Just let me go.”
    “Okay, Sandra. Why are you happy?”
    “What? I don’t understand.”
    “We don’t have time, Sandra. You only have a moment before you die from blood loss. Tell me now. What is the key to your happiness?”
    She was beginning to feel light-headed, her leg pulsing and gushing blood with each beat of her heart. The room spun, and a nauseous feeling snaked through her abdomen. Her mind fought for an answer. “I don’t know. I guess I just try to focus on the good things in life and see the best in people.”
    He smiled. “That’s a good, simple answer. Thank you, Sandra. Maybe, after I take your soul, I’ll be able to do the same.”
    “What? You said you’d let me go.” Her leg throbbed and ached. “You need to stop the bleeding!”
    “Again, I’m sorry, but I lied. Even if we were sitting in a hospital right now, there’s little they could do for you at this point.”
    He reached back to the leather bag and retrieved a small cup. He filled it with some of the blood gushing from her leg. Sandra watched in horror as he raised the cup to his lips and dumped its contents down his throat.
    A part of her couldn’t believe this was actually happening. This was something that happened in the movies or in those true-crime documentaries. It wasn’t something that she had ever even considered could actually happen to her. Was this really the end? There was so much that she still wanted to do. So much life left.
    Her vision faded in and out, but she fought against the coming darkness.
    He pulled up another chair across from her, and then she felt a cool liquid splashing over her bare skin. The strong smell touched her nostrils, but her mind couldn’t identify it.
    His stare drilled deep into her, and Sandra was unable to look away. For the first time, she noticed