Rose blinked, tears were spilling down her face, and her words didn't leave her lips. Her nose was bloody, and the cut on her lip was worse. The blood had slipped into her mouth, and all she could taste and smell was blood.
Ryder was a man in his early thirties with a scar running from the side of his forehead across his left eye and stopping just over his lips. It was a nasty ragged scar—the eye was clearly blind.
While the other side of his face was without any scarring, it didn't look better than the other. Ryder had a constant snarl. His huge nose was lifted, and his working eye glared at everything.
Ryder raised his hand as if to strike her again, but Rose knew there was no way she could survive another slap, so she forced herself to speak through the pain.
"Rose," she said. "Rose Vallyn." She coughed, spitting out blood, and her head rolled to the back.
"Who sent you?" Ryder asked.
"No one. I am just trying to leave Futherfield. Please let me go."
