Page 36 of Only for Love

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Tears clog my throat. I always did what she said, and I killed her. Dead. Eyes wide open. Lipsticked mouth hung slack. Dead.

“Mom!” I scream but know my mouth isn’t moving. I’m trapped in the dark, fighting a body that won’t wake up. “Mom!”

Then, with sudden clarity, I see her face. “Gray-baby.”

“No!” A cold shudder runs through me, and I can’t break free.

Extraction team voices mix with my Pops’s. Their words are a blur, indistinguishable, but I know their meaning. Everything is my fault.

My head hurts. Pain radiates. If I can’t wake up, I want to die.

Pops’s voice spins in my head, his words a tumble of nonsense mixed with his drunk cackle.

“Help her!” Her lifeless face stares at me. It morphs to the desert night where I was the last man standing. “Help them…”

Nothing changes. I fall away from the edge of waking into the hell that I deserve. The only thing that could ever save me was Emma’s voice, and I’ve lost that forever.

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