Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
“I found them in bed and walked out.” I force myself on. “My wife came after me. Got in her car and chased me. She oversteered.” I clench my eyes shut and look to the heavens. She’s up there somewhere, probably looking down on me and thinking I’m getting what I deserve. “A bus took the car out. She was confirmed dead on the scene.”
The whole horrific event I watched in slow motion in my rearview mirror is fresh again. Clear and vivid. I die on the inside all over again.
“Oh my God.” I lip-read her sobbed words, just before her hand comes up to her mouth and covers it.
“I went back to war.” I fight through my agony, reliving every second of my past. “I felt it was all I had left. I lost all sense of respect for my safety. For the safety of others. I didn’t want to be here anymore. Alive. They dismissed me after medical reports deemed me unstable. Being alive became a form of continuous torture.” I give into the swelling lump in my throat. I don’t swallow it down. I let the tears form and my voice crack. “Then I met you.”
She grabs the side of her car to steady herself. The horns are blaring now, constant and piercing, and I look to see the traffic is moving on, slowly progressing around Cami’s car blocking the road. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, oblivious to the chaos around her.
I’m honest. “I was too bitter and twisted to face it. My wife betrayed me. I couldn’t even find it within myself to forgive her when she was dead. I left. Walked away. Shut down. I turned into a hateful, bitter bastard, Camille. My daughter was better off without me. I didn’t want to poison her with my blackness.”
She wipes at her eyes, looking around her like the crowds of people can offer her some advice of what to do.
“Cami, I love you!” I shout it, just to be sure she hears it, my arms swinging up in front of me before dropping to my sides. She looks at me, the tears still coming. “Nothing about the time we’ve had together has been a lie. Not one second.”
“You should have told me.”
“I had every intention of telling you. I just needed to find my own clarity before I could offer you yours. I needed to see my daughter, start to make things right. I want to make things right. You’ve made me see that I can do that.”
She drops her gaze, nodding, and my hope is revived as she lifts a foot from the ground. She’s coming to me. I silently spur her on. I’ve never needed to hold her more than I do now. She takes a step, and not prepared to delay the comfort we both need, I begin toward her, too.
I ignore the continued sounds of car horns screaming around us, my focus set only on getting her back where she belongs. In my arms. She wipes at her eyes again, her face lifting as she comes to me, her eyes alive with relief and hope.
But then the loud screeching of tires adds a new ringing to my ears, and I find myself abandoning the comfort of her coming closer, searching out the source.
The rest happens in slow motion.
A van.
A white van. The same white van that sped away from me when I approached it outside Cami’s agent’s office. It speeds toward Cami, and her attention is immediately grabbed by how close it’s come. I don’t realize I’m running until the soles of my feet start burning through my boots, my legs spinning in a sprint. I see her smile drop away. I see her body lock up. But she doesn’t seem to be getting any closer to me, no matter how fast I run toward her.
I watch as the van pulls to a screaming stop next to her. I see the door on the side slide open.
“No!” I bellow, the roar echoing through the streets of London. A pair of arms appear, covered in black material, and seize her, pulling her into the van. Screeching rings out through the air again, and the smell of burning rubber invades my nose. The van heads straight for me, forcing me to dive from its path. My body crashes into the tarmac with force and I roll, springing to my feet, sweating and heaving, watching as the van slams into Cami’s Merc and forces it into a nearby wall on an ear-piercing smash. I’m sprinting again, trying to make it to the van as it reverses. “No!” I bellow again. It speeds off, taking a corner fast, the door pulled shut as it goes. And I lose sight of it, my legs slowing until I come a gradual stop.