Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
The coppery, iron scent of blood stains the air, and my knees are warm and wet with it, but that’s not something I can deal with right now. I can't even look at what I've done. Not yet.
When I shift, Ely clutches me tighter, and I do the same back. Maybe she needs to hold me as much as I need to touch her.
She's whispering to me softly, and I can't make out the words with my ear in her shirt and the other covered by her forearm, but I don't care. Just touching her and feeling her is enough right now. It's everything I need.
I'm trying to sort my emotions, this empty hollow hole with the cold rage I'd felt when I pulled that trigger. At least to figure out the bridge that got me here...from enraged to empty in two seconds flat.
Ely's fingers shift up into my hair, and she releases some of the hold she'd had on my head for the last couple of minutes.
Tears still pour down my cheeks, and I block out the shame I'd usually feel for crying in front of her. There's not even room for that in this empty ache.
There's a scuffle at the door and Ely turns to face it, my head still held tight so my back is to the doorway. A subtle shift but she's trying to protect me.
Something in my cracks deep inside, and I hold her tighter. My wife. My love.
"Did you need something?" Ely asks, her tone curt and cold.
I gently ease away enough that I can see who is at the doorway. It wouldn't be a stranger... has to be one of my friends.
Of course, Drew stands there, his eyes to his right, his face a little pale. "We heard a shot, wanted to make sure everything was okay in here."
Ely swipes at my face with her thumb, not missing a beat, her eyes never leaving Drew's face. "We're fine, but I assume you have some way of dealing with this? I want to take care of him right now, if you could handle this..." she trails off.
Drew sighs and pulls his phone from his pocket. "I got it. Just take a trashbag with you when you go upstairs. I'll need your clothes; both of you are fucking splattered."
Ely glances down at her shirt like she's only now remembering she shot her father a little while before.
"Oh, yeah, right, okay."
I slowly stand, and it's like my knees can barely get under me, and I wobble like a baby deer until she clutches me tightly to her side. "Come on. Let's go upstairs. We'll let your friends deal with the mess this time."
I can't say anything as she leads me from the room. Nor can I look back at Tanya, at what I did to her, at what's left of her face.
Slowly, Ely guides me out of the room and towards the stairs. Aries hands her a white trash bag as we exit the room. She crumples it in one hand, the other still tight around me. The walk to our bedroom takes a minute that feels like a million years. She closes the door firmly then turns to face me.
"Do you hate me now?" I whisper. "If you did I would understand.”
She rears back, shaking out the trash bag. "No, I don't hate you. We've been through too much and have gone too far for me to hate you now. We made a promise to one another, that we wouldn’t keep secrets, we wouldn’t hide the darkness from each other. This was just you keeping that promise. I can know this version of you exists and still love the man that you are. Remember, for darkness to exist, there must be some slivers of light."
The empty ache in my chest fills with a little more warmth. My hands are shaking as I reach for my shirt buttons. She steps up, batting my hands away, and quickly strips the buttons from the holes and tugs the fabric away to shove into the bag. Then, with utmost care, she removes my shoes, my socks, my pants, my underwear…all of it.
Once she finishes she checks the bag for blood then gently sets it on the floor while she strips out of her own clothes and stuffs them deep into the sack and ties it up.
When she moves to the door, I grab her wrist. "No one sees you."
This earns me a tiny smile. "No one is going to. I'll set it outside the door and close it. Jealous?" She winks and I can't help it. The normalcy of it, the cheek of her…it makes me laugh.
It's small and short, but again it adds a bit more to this gnawing hole in my chest, threatening to eat me from the inside out.