Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Rachel.
No.
Fuck no!
Wrenching open the door, I bolted down the stairs.
My heart pounded; my entire body ached with panic.
I didn’t feel my own weakness, only pure piercing terror.
Q charged after me as I sprinted down the corridor and careened into Ily’s room.
I couldn’t compute.
Couldn’t tolerate that I’d left her.
I’d left her alone, and she’d crashed.
“ILY!” I dashed to her side.
Two doctors stood on either side of her bed. The one closest to me shoved me back. “Stay away. Let us work!” His hands flew, ripping open packets of needles and drugs. He yelled at his colleague. “Give her epinephrine now.”
The other injected something into her vein, then opened a case with wires and paddles. Flicking a few buttons, he tore off the blankets, sliced off Ily’s bandages, and placed the defibrillator against her chest.
My knees threatened to buckle.
Q dragged me back, but I wasn’t aware of him. I couldn’t see or hear anything but her. Her dying in front of me. Her leaving me all over again.
My gaze locked on the stitches directly over her sternum.
A tiny wound with a colourful bruise feathering around it.
A mark from the bullet that killed Peter.
My legs almost gave out a second time as the doctor yelled, “Clear!”
An awful whine followed by a heavy thud.
Ily jerked off the bed, her body rising before falling back down.
Rachel stood in the corner, tears rivering down her cheeks. She wrung her hands. “She was fine. She was fine. And then—” She buried her face into her hands.
I staggered as one of the doctors removed the oxygen tube from beneath Ily’s nose and the other one down her throat. Placing a clear mask over her, one doctor squeezed air into her lungs with every pump of the bellows while the other doctor kept count on his watch.
“Clear!”
I groaned in fucking misery as they shocked her again.
She fell back. Her arms splayed, head lolled, eyes closed.
“Keep going. Do whatever it takes,” Q snarled. “I’ll get Dr Harl.” He bolted from the room.
And I just stood there.
Sick.
Useless.
Numb.
The doctor pushed air into her, again and again, making her chest rise and fall, rise and fall.
The other counted down the seconds, then pressed the paddles back over her breasts. “Clear!”
Another wallop of electricity.
Another shock just like on Victor’s island.
I-I can’t.
I stumbled backward.
I crashed against the wall.
How many times had I seen her writhing and twitching on the ground, thanks to her collar? How many times had I pressed that godforsaken button and delivered the current myself?
Ah fuck.
My eyes burned.
My terror mutated into something savage and wrong.
I’d hoped I’d done enough to be worthy of her.
I’d hoped I’d be allowed to be happy after so many decades of misery.
But…I hadn’t done enough.
I couldn’t change.
I would never be free from this blackness inside me.
This blackness that’d destroyed her.
That blackness gnashed and gnawed as Ily died right in front of me.
Revenge swirled sickly. Fury and misery, bloodthirst and brutality. It all billowed around my chest, howling through my blood.
I’d caused this.
I was the one who needed to be put down.
The monster inside me shredded all my hopes and dreams. It howled to go after her. To slaughter all those in my way.
Tripping toward the bed, I needed to touch her. Talk to her.
I should never have left.
I should never have gone!
“Ily…”
“Clear!”
Another shock followed by awful, awful silence.
Then a horrible high-pitched beep filled the room.
A beep that just kept rising and rising. Never changing tone. One long, uninterrupted, excruciating line.
“No!” Rachel charged the bed. “Keep going. She can’t flatline. She can’t! Ily. Ily don’t! We’re here. You’re safe. Come back!”
The doctor closest to Rachel pushed her away. He charged the paddles again but looked at his colleague with grief.
And I knew.
I knew as I bent over and gripped my thighs, unable to breathe.
I knew as that godawful beep kept screaming.
She…she’s gone.
Rachel dropped to her knees and sobbed.
Shouts sounded in the house as Q no doubt tried to find someone to help.
And the final pieces in me cracked and flung open.
The floodgates of hell and damnation.
The maddening darkness that demanded the rest of my soul now I’d lost half of it to Ily.
All my pain fled.
All my sorrow dried up.
Straightening, I nodded and noticed I still fisted my brother’s phone.
It was a sign.
A clue.
I would die.
That was irrefutable.
But I wouldn’t die by my hand.
With gritted teeth, I took one last look at Ily.
Her hair covered her face, her breasts exposed, and chin tipped down.
I recoiled.
I couldn’t see her like that.
So lifeless…so empty.
Without a word, I stalked out of the room.
I felt absolutely nothing as I headed down the corridor, down the steps, and out the front door.
A black Mercedes hummed on the driveway, its door flung wide and motor still running as if another doctor had arrived and flown inside to help.
Slipping Q’s phone into my jeans pocket, I crunched across the gravel.