Lahat ng Kabanata ng Contract Over: You're Free to Go: Kabanata 301 - Kabanata 310

The fire in the abandoned shipyard burned with brutal, indiscriminate fury. Smoke laced with the stench of burning plastic could sear a person's throat raw, and every breath made Silas feel as though his whole body were burning from the inside.The industrial nylon rope binding Avery had begun to melt in the heat, fusing itself to the rusted H-beam. Silas had no knife, and he couldn't possibly tear apart a knot designed to secure a two-ton load with his bare hands."Silas, go." With the wet jacket covering her face, Avery's voice was barely louder than a hum. Her feet still kicked weakly at him, trying to drive him out of this death trap, but Silas ignored her.He ran his fingers along the blistering column until they found a sharp flap of rusted metal jutting from its edge. There was no time to search for a tool.Silas seized the rope with both hands, pinned it against the jagged edge, and sawed back and forth like a man possessed. The heated metal scorched through his palm whil

Just as Silas prepared to make another futile attempt, a cold, pale hand slowly reached out from beneath the beam and pressed firmly against the back of his blood-soaked hand. He went rigid and looked down.Teresa was awake. Or rather, the crushing pain had never given her the chance to lose consciousness. Her face was pale as paper, utterly drained of color. Cold sweat and rainwater ran together, plastering strands of hair to her cheeks.Crushing pain tore through her lower body, shredding her nerve endings and triggering tiny, involuntary spasms. Yet her eyes remained bright. They held none of the vacant haze of someone near death, only exhaustion sharpened by fierce awareness."What the hell are you doing?" Teresa rasped. Her voice was barely audible, scraped raw by smoke and pain. Each word brought a fleck of blood foam to the corner of her mouth.She clenched her teeth against the coppery taste rising in her throat, then pushed weakly at Silas again with her mud-covered

Five days later, Central Hospital's private ward was quiet enough for Avery to hear the faint tick of fluid dripping through her IV line. The overpowering stench of gasoline and burning flesh was finally gone, replaced by the cold, acrid smell of disinfectant.Avery's consciousness felt as though someone had thrown it into a washing machine, spun it violently dry, and dumped it back into reality.When she finally opened her eyes, her vision filled with a painful white glare from the ceiling, the sheets, and the surgical light above her."Water," she rasped. Her cracked lips barely moved, and her voice sounded like a rusted file dragging across glass. The raw, searing pain in her smoke-damaged throat reminded her with brutal clarity that she was still alive.She tried to turn her head, and a tearing ache ripped through the right side of her face. Carlton's punch, followed by the furnace heat of the fire, had swollen her right eye almost shut.Avery let out a weak breath. Every bo

In the public lobby of the Bellmere Police Department's West District Precinct, Silas sat at a familiar metal desk with a black pen wedged between his bandaged fingers.Silas scrawled his name across the final page of his statement. The result was so mangled that calling it a signature felt like an act of charity."That's enough. We can make out the general shape," Thomas told him. He sipped his coffee, amused by Silas' miserable appearance, then pushed an ink pad across the desk.Silas painstakingly worked his thumb through a gap in the bandages, pressed it into the dark ink, and left a firm print over his illegible signature. He set down the pen, raised his exhausted, bloodshot eyes, and asked, "What's happening with Carlton?""That piece of trash?" Thomas gave a contemptuous snort. "He treated the criminal code like an all-you-can-eat buffet and picked every charge carrying the heaviest sentence—kidnapping, extortion, arson, and attempted murder."Then there's the evidence Ms

The lobby on the first floor of Central Hospital was buzzing with voices. William held an unlit cigarette between his lips and stared at an itemized bill long enough to reach the floor. The sight made even his back teeth ache.He had raced after the police convoy when he heard about the disaster at the abandoned shipyard in the East District. At the hospital, he found complete chaos.SWAT had subdued Carlton like a rabid animal, while Teresa fought for her life in surgery. Silas had spent the night outside the ICU with both hands wrapped in bulky bandages.For a man normally particular about how he sliced vegetables, Silas now had both hands wrapped into swollen mitts. He spent the entire night outside the ICU, standing so still he might as well have been carved from stone. "What kind of cursed mess is this?" William muttered, stuffing the bill into the briefcase before heading for the elevator.When he entered Avery's private room, the smell of disinfectant mingled with the fain