Drowning to Breathe

“Who’s Lester and what was Mark gonna stop?”


That question evoked the first flare of fear in him. A blanched whiteness flashed across his face that had nothin’ to do with the air I was repressing from his lungs.

Finally, I found his weakness.

“Tell me…who the fuck is Lester and how’s he involved with Shea and Mark?”

Just one fucking word, that’s all I needed.

A fist suddenly hooked me at the temple. The hit took me hard enough to stun me, to catch me off guard, and it gave the bastard time to shove me off and stumble to his feet.

But in a second flat I was on mine. With all my weight, I lunged forward.

We collided.

A rain of glass shattered around us as we busted through the sliding door and crashed out onto the patio. Stone dug into flesh, muscles burned with exertion. I barely registered my skin stinging with sharp lances of pain.

It only served as fuel to the fire.

I hit him over and over. One brutal blow after another. “Tell me what you did. Admit it, you piece of shit. Admit it. Tell me! What did you do to Shea? Who’s Lester? Did you kill Mark? Did you hurt Shea?”

Bones crunched and blood splattered.

Rage spiraled, spinning and curling and whirling until it sucked me down to a place where all my dark and ugly reigned. That place where Shea had shone so bright it’d been obscured. Nearly forgotten. A place I’d begun to pretend didn’t exist. It was a place so dark I couldn’t see. A place screaming echoes of pain so loud it erased all logical thought.

A place so foul it wiped out my humanity and obliterated my mission.

The goal I had come to attain.

Because ending him would do better.

“Freeze!”

The command boomed against the static buzzing in my ears. Everything slowed. My mind was just able to comprehend the furor of bodies rushing onto the scene. I became aware of the guns pointed in my direction.

Frantic, I clamored to my feet. Eyes blinking through the haze of bloodlust, I tried to focus on the swarm of officers stepping through the broken door, others coming around the side of the house to surround me.

“Get down…on the ground…hands behind your head,” one shouted.

Slowly, I dropped to my knees, hands raised in surrender, before I slumped forward and put them behind my head.

Officers surrounded me.

My face was pressed into the ground, and I reared with the overwhelming violence still skimming through my system.

Nausea swelled.

A knee was forced between my shoulder blades, and my arms were wrenched back as cuffs were slapped on my wrists.

“You are under arrest. You have the right to…”

The reality of what I’d done hit me.

An officer yanked me to my feet, jumbled words vying to press into my senses. “…remain silent. Anything…”

Through the blur of voices and pain and regret, my clouded gaze lifted to Jennings who was sitting up on both his knees, attempting to climb to his feet. Blood smeared across his face.

But there was no shock in his expression. No regret or worry of negative consequence.

Those vile eyes just smirked back at me as he reached for my phone where it lay next to him in the grass. It had fallen out of my pocket.

Fuck.

He held the face out toward me. Shattered into a million splintered pieces. But the red dot could still be seen, indicating it was recording. The bastard knew.

Chills cinched my entire body when he leveled me with a baleful gaze.

He mouthed a single word.

“Yes.”

A silent admission of guilt that no one was ever gonna hear.

Then he tucked my phone into his back pocket, gestured just as casually at the cameras mounted on the wall.

Cameras probably inside as well.

I wondered when you’d come.

Jennings had completed his mission.

Getting me out of the way so he could get to Shea.

That fucking bogus suit asking for custody of Kallie. Every time he’d gotten in my face. He’d incited and provoked and spurred until he had me ensnared.

He’d removed Mark.

He’d found the best way to remove me.

Shea was right.

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