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Copyright © 2015 by Kelli Jean
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.kellijeanauthor.com
Cover Designer: RE Creatives, https://recreativesdesigns.wordpress.com
Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Espen
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part II
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Special Thanks
About the Author
Ke
“Dr. Ke
“We have to get her out! The lines are go
Surrounded by hellfire, thick black smoke burns my lungs. Walls, ceiling, everything are licking tongues of flames. Hissing, it whispers the deadliest secrets in my ringing ears.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” it tells me. “I want to feel my fists in your hair, pulling back your head…”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Lucy says. “I just can’t move. Please, I just want to get out.”
“Okay, Lucy. We’re getting you out.”
Fuck, it’s hot.
It’s all around us. It wants us.
What the fuck is that noise?
A snarling, snapping, starving beast, unsatisfied with what it’s already gotten, wants to devour us, too.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“Go! Go! Go!” screams Gavin, grabbing Lucy by the hair.
I grab a fistful, too, and we haul ass out the door.
There’s no sun, no trees, nothing but blackness. Behind us, the inferno rages its orange light, showing distorted figures twisting and wasting away.
Lucy ascends, her dead body seized by the beast. Airless lungs fill, and her eyes open wide, seeing, looking, knowing something we can’t know. Her mouth opens into a massive O, elongating her face and dropping her jaw too far. From inside her, the beast’s roar unleashes. She pulls us into her chest.
“Ow! Fuck, Luce—”
BOOM!
Phil
“Fuck! Luce!”
Ke
I grabbed her, trying to hold her down, but she was thrashing something fierce and ended up whacking me in the face with her forearm.
“Shit!” Jumping to my knees, I wrapped my arms around her flailing body.
Stiffening, she released a scream fit to tear the ceiling loose. I was fucking terrified she’d do some damage to her insides, going spastic like this.
“Help!” I roared. “Someone fuckin’ help!”
Thunder from the stairs pounded its way toward us, and Co
“She’s havin’ some sort of nightmare!” I explained, tasting blood. My Baby Girl had busted my lip wide open.
Alys and X peeled into the room, out of breath, looking as though the dead walked among us.
“Phil?” Ke
I looked down into my Baby Girl’s face. She looked lost, her eyes unfocused, as she tried to find me.
“Yeah, Baby Girl,” I replied, my arms tightening around her.
She can’t hear you, dumbass.
No, but she felt my voice.
Sighing, she relaxed.
“It hurts,” she told me quietly.
Fucking hell, she was breaking me. Gently, I placed my hand on her face, and she closed her eyes, tears squeezing out.
“Where are her meds?” asked Co
“One of the front pockets in my pants,” I replied, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “On the floor.”
“I’ll get some water,” said Alys.
X, looking woozy, just stood there and stared.
We fuckin’ stank to high hell—all old sweat and adrenaline, toxic smoke and ash. Raw meat and blood and open wounds held the past day on us like a film of awfulness. Ke
Ke
My sweet woman, give me your pain. Let me take it from you.
Alys came back with a glass of water, and Co
“Should she eat something?” whispered Alys. “When was the last time she ate anything?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, helping Ke
She took the Vicodin pills from me, making a face. I glared at her, and she popped them in her mouth, letting me hold the glass to her lips.
“Weed?” Ke
“Shit, I could use some myself,” grunted Co
“I’m going to make her some food,” said Alys, her voice growing strong with conviction. Food made shit all right. “Anyone want a sandwich?”
X grunted in the affirmative and followed her out of the room.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Co
“Can I have some more water?”
She downed the rest of the glass, and then Co
Co
“I remember,” Ke
I took her fingers in my hand to stop her. At her words, Co
“We blew up.”
Kissing her temple, I was afraid to hold her any tighter. Instead, I rocked her from side to side in the hopes that it would soothe her.
“Lucy’s dead, isn’t she?” she said loudly, since she couldn’t hear herself. “And Charlotte. She never made it out.”
“I don’t know, Baby. We were only concerned about you,” I replied.
I turned her face up, and her eyes were so sad.
“What happened?” she asked.
All of me sort of sagged into myself. I had no idea how to tell a deaf person what she needed to hear.
Co
Someone with a bomb blew up Rita’s office. It triggered two more explosions. The last one was from the gas line. You and Gavin made it out.