Page 196 of Into These Eyes
I should have known the life I’d fallen into was too good to be true. Just when I thought I had everything I’d ever need to live a good life with the woman I love, it’s ripped away. Again. Like some cruel joke. Giving me a taste of what’s possible, then snatching it from me forever.
Her life. Extinguished by a monster who thrives on destroying others.
The knowledge that I can give the police what they need to eviscerate Reid is utterly pointless. What does it matter?
Reid killed her.
That fucker should never have had the chance. I should have killed him. I should have followed Benny’s plan. I should never have let her get under my skin. Instead, I let hope for a future that was never meant to be mine blind me. If I’d only done thewrongthing, she’d be alive.
Now I can’t touch her, hold her, look into her eyes. Everything is meaningless.
My father’s face suddenly swims before me. And now I know. I truly know what he felt the night Jamie’s mother was murdered. Everything became meaningless for him in the blink of an eye. Including me. And I can’t hate him anymore.
But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?
Excruciating pain suddenly tears through my body.
Then I’m falling.
When I crash into something hard and unforgiving, the pain screams. But before I can vanish within that soulless darkness again, the hurt that tears my heart right open obliterates anything my body throws at me.
On some level, I realise I’m on the floor, trying to drag myself to the door that seems to retreat every time I inch closer.
I don’t know where I’m going, or why. I just need to leave this room, the truth it holds within its walls. If I’m not in here, maybe the truth can’t follow me, maybe I can stop my heart from disintegrating.
Or better yet, maybe it’ll vaporise and end the dread that’s engulfing me.
Please, I beg.Please stop beating.
I need it to stop.
Just like hers.
I’m sinking, drowning, and I want to slip under the water and let it swallow me into its darkest depths.
“Gavin!”
I raise my head. Anika stands in the doorway, her expression horrified as a coffee cup slips from her hand, splattering across the shiny lino.
Beside her, an equally shocked uniformed cop stares at me.
“Get help!” Anika screams at him. “Go!”
As he takes off, my sister races toward me, skidding to her knees, lifting me under my arms until my upper body leans against her. Engulfing me, she rocks me, muttering nonsense words that everything’s okay.
But it’s not okay. Not if Anika’s here. She only just left to start her new life.
She’s back because her sister’s dead.
Heaving sobs burst from my closed throat. And I hate it. Hate it because it means I’m still here in this nightmare. I’m breathing. She’s not. It should be the other way around.
“Gavin,” Anika says into my ear. “Gavin, I’m so sorry, I—Fuck!” There’s careful jostling, then she’s kneeling beside me, my back pressed against something firm. The wall, I guess.
She takes my face in her hands, just the way Jamie does.
Did.
Now she’s crying too.
