Keep Breathing

Eight.

That was what he called me. I didn’t have a name. I wasn’t a person. I was a number. I was just the next in his sequence of kills.

But he didn’t kill me. He set me free and he told me to run.

That’s what I’ve been doing for the last year. Running. Surviving. Fighting just to breathe through this new hell I find myself in.

Then it’s on the news. They found numbers seven and nine. The number killer has struck again.

Realizing I should be there with those two girls, dead and mutilated in the woods, makes me realize I have to stop surviving and find a way to live.

I want my life back. I have parents who love me, brothers who will be tearing the world apart to find me, and a career I worked damned hard to earn, but he has taken it all from me with his threats and the terror he has instilled so deeply within me, I can’t even begin to fathom how to get it out again.

He let me go, but fear is still holding me prisoner.

Can I ever find the strength to stand up for, not only myself, but the ones who came in the sequence both before and after me? Can I find the strength to stop him before he finds number ten?

Just when it feels as if I’m losing the fight to keep breathing, four guys stumble into my life at the most unlikely of times. I feel a connection with each of them like I’ve never known before, but will it be enough when the truth comes out? Can I keep them safe when the number killer decides he’s not quite finished with me just yet?