Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t your fault.”
That’s when it happens. When it all comes flooding back. When all the memories I’d lost take me under like a tidal wave. Like a tsunami. I stand under the weight of them and look into my mother’s eyes, trying not to see the gash on her throat as everything rushes me.
I stumble but she holds my hand and somehow, she steadies me.
The sun is gone. I didn’t notice the clouds that rolled in, but I feel the wind, bitter and punishing.
I look down, seeing Elizabeth. She’s not in the sand anymore. She’s standing beside our mother holding her other hand. She’s five now and she, too, is wearing the dress she wore the day she was killed. She too is cut, bleeding. No, not bleeding anymore. She already bled.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell my little sister as an unbearable pain twists in my side.
Elizabeth reaches her other hand to me and holds mine.
“I miss you,” I tell her, then turn to my mom. “I miss you all so much.”
My mom reaches out to touch my face, wiping my cheek. Her finger is smeared with red when she pulls her hand away.
“I know you do but you can’t stay,” she says, and the scene shifts again, the clouds gone, the sun back. Elizabeth bright and happy again, no blood, just her pudgy little body in her bright yellow bumble bee bathing suit.
“Why not?” It would be so easy.
Elizabeth squeezes my hand and I look down to her. “You have to go back.” It’s like moving through mud here. Even shifting my gaze from one to the other is like dragging myself through thick mud.
“Why not?” I ask my mom again.
“Because she needs you. If you die, she dies,” my mother says. “And you made her a promise.”
Crème caramel eyes. Scarlett. Scarlett alone again. Scarlett unprotected again.
I promised to keep her safe and I’m breaking my promise.
Pain. Bright, fluorescent lights. Noise. So much fucking noise.
I blink, feel my mom’s cool hand on my cheek again. I look at her, see her eyes again, fading now.
“Keep your promise,” she says to me and then she’s gone.
28
Scarlett
The chopper lifts off. A soldier straps me in as we veer sharply west and I catch my breath, grasping hold of the edges of the seat.
I hate this chopper.
David is sitting across from me, facing me. In his eyes I see his hate.
Cristiano is dead.
I felt it, didn’t I?
“How?” I ask him, my voice so small in the scream of the chopper’s blades.
“Your lover killed him,” David says.
“My…Marcus? He’s not…Marcus killed him?”
“Don’t pretend to care.”
I’m not pretending but I don’t bother to explain that. Cristiano is dead. He used up all nine of his lives.
The chopper dips low unexpectedly and I gasp, my stomach lurching before that brick settles in again.
Dead.
Gone.
I’ll never see him again and all I can think is how much I’ll miss him.
“I didn’t betray him,” I tell his uncle, not that it matters anymore. Not that he’ll believe me.
He doesn’t say anything, not for a long time and I’m not sure what I expect him to say. What I want him to say. But I have a feeling I won’t feel the loss of Cristiano for too long. I have a feeling I won’t have time to mourn him.
At least I got Noah out. If I’m not at the square in two days’ time, he’ll disappear. He’ll know what happened to Cristiano. He’ll figure out what happened to me and he’ll know he has to disappear.
He’ll be safe at least.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask David.
“Back to your people.”
“I have no people.”
“No, I guess you don’t. But that only makes you more valuable to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Felix Pérez has a coup on his hands.”
“Felix? What does he have to do with anything?”
“And he is the only one who can give me what I need now.”
“What’s that?”
“Sir,” one of the soldiers wearing a headset interrupts us. “The jet is ready. Chopper lands in less than five minutes. We’re cleared to take off as soon as everyone’s on board. We’ll have a ten-minute window, so we’ll need to hurry.”
David nods, stretches his neck to look out at whatever we’re flying toward. I’m facing the wrong way so I can’t see.
“Do they have what we need on board?”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier says, eyes bouncing off me.
“You get the girl on the plane,” he says, gaze still out the window. “If she fights you knock her out by any means necessary.”
“What plane? Where the hell are you taking me?” I ask when David turns his attention back to me.
He doesn’t answer me though and I shift my gaze to the window as we begin a hurried descent toward a long runway at what must be a small, private airport. If I crane my neck, I can see the jet that’s parked on the runway, one man standing outside looking up at the chopper, two more soldiers hovering around the stairs that lead into the plane. I see that one is smoking as we near the ground.