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He blinked. “Did I just hear my son beg?”

I drew in a ragged breath. “Please. Let me get her. She’s already been down there a minute and a half. I’ve got less than a minute to get her up here and--”

He shoved the barrel further into my chest. “And if I did you this favor, how do you think that would make me look?”

Two. Three. Four. I have to get to her within the next minute. I just have to.

“No one has to know,” I said.

He snickered. “Someone always knows, son. You’d do well to learn that lesson now, so no one else has to die.”

Ten. Eleven Twelve.

“She doesn't! Have! To die!”

Dad moved the gun to my forehead. “I’m sorry it came to this, Maxwell.”

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

“Over my dead body,” I growled.

Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

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