Beast: Learning to Breathe (Devil's Blaze MC #5)

Instantly, Annabelle’s face is there. Her beautiful smile and those gorgeous blue eyes. There’s so much I miss about her…so much I hunger for now. At the top of my list is the way she used to laugh. God, I miss that sound. The way her laugh could light up even the darkest parts of me. She had a beautiful laugh.

The thing that fucks with my head the most is: I can’t hear her laugh now. I want to hear her…just one more time. I’d give anything for that. Then, I would commit it to memory, because for the life of me, I can’t hear it in my head. It’s not there. It’s a piece of my daughter that is now just a faint whisper. It’s a part of Annabelle that I’m losing, and it’s killing me. Her sweet melodic laugh is gone forever. No one cares. I’m the only one who is torn apart inside, and I can’t do a damned thing to change it. It doesn’t matter how hard I crave it, I can barely hear my own daughter’s laughter. I know one day I’ll lose her completely. All but one thing. Because the only thing that I can’t forget… are her screams.

God, her screams haunt me… they’re destroying me. A real man…a real father would have saved her. He would have found a way. I failed. You read all the time how these parents do amazing things to save their children in times of emergency. Some woman lifted a whole fucking car. I read that somewhere. I was useless. I couldn’t do something as simple as get my daughter out of a car. She was alive. I heard her yelling…I heard her crying for me. I heard her begging for me. “Daddy!” she cried out in full panic. I tried to get to her. I tried so fucking hard, but it was all for nothing. I failed her. I failed my princess. My scars are a permanent reminder. A reminder that I am a failure.

A large crash next door makes me jerk, and I do my best to push the thoughts of Annabelle away. My hands are shaking. Fuck, I can even feel tears as the wetness pools on my face. This is what I am now…a fucking drunk who cries alone in the dark. I hear another crashing noise, and it’s closely followed by a loud scream. I put my whiskey down and stumble to look out the window. A tree has fallen in my neighbor’s backyard. It looks like it missed the majority of the house, but clearly part of the tree crashed through one of her back windows. I start to turn away, going back to lay down. That’s when I see her come outside in the pouring rain.

What the fuck does she think she can do? Is she going to try and move the whole tree? Doesn’t she care that she’s carrying a baby?

A better question might be why the hell I care. She’s nothing to me. Just another selfish, stupid woman. I walk back to the couch, dismissing her. She’s probably just like Jan. Obviously, she doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. I grab the bottle and take another swig. Maybe I can drink until I pass-out. Closing my eyes, allowing the memory of Annabelle to come back to me, I will it to never leave.

“Daddy,” her voice calls out to me. She’s reaching for me, and I need to touch her. I extend my hand, trying to do just that—take her outstretched hand in mine. I can almost feel her. Then she’s gone, her voice… it disappears when the sound of an engine rumbles. I drop the whiskey bottle, not caring that it lands on its side and pours out onto the old wooden floor. I walk to the window, my head swimming, and I’m not sure if that’s from the alcohol or from the strength of the memories. Lightning streaks through the sky again, and I see that crazy-ass woman standing in the pouring rain holding what looks and sounds to be a fucking chainsaw.

“Son of a bitch!” I growl out. I should get out there before she gets herself killed. She’s a fucking lunatic.





8





Hayden





Damn it! Does God hate me? How much more does he expect me to take? I stare at the limbs and broken glass that just showered over the baby’s bed. One of the branches crashed against the bassinet and crushed in the top. I was going to use that to put her in my room at night… I start to cry. I can’t stop my tears, and I hate crying. I’ve spent so much time crying, and doing so is a big reinforcement that I’m weak. That’s not the feeling I want to teach my daughter. It’s not a feeling I ever want Maggie to feel.

For her part, Maggie picks this moment to kick me—hard. That feels like her telling me enough is enough and really, it is. It’s more than enough. I will not let some fucking tree be what breaks me after all the shit that I’ve endured up to this point in my life. This tree will not rob my daughter! With that thought and little else, I throw on my hand-me-down yellow raincoat. That was smart, well the smartest thing about this whole endeavor. Then, I push my feet into the nearest available shoes and march to the door with only one thing on my mind. Revenge.

My first stop is the old rickety shed at the end of my yard. The rain is pouring down, and it might have been a little smarter (as if anything about this could be) had I stopped to grab a flashlight. Luckily, (if it doesn’t strike me) lightning keeps flashing and helps shine my way through the dark. In the shed, there’s an old chainsaw. I found it here along with some other tools after I moved in. I never got rid of any of it, and now I’m glad for that.

I’ve never started a chainsaw in my life, but it has to be kind of like a lawnmower, right? The task sure seems a lot harder than I imagined. After the sixth time (okay probably closer to ten) of trying to start the damn thing, my arm is tired, and the fire inside of me is starting to subside. I decide to try one more time, and by a miracle of miracles, it actually works. I somehow manage to find the throttle and press the lever. Instantly, the motor cranks up. I keep my finger there, gunning it gently. Then, I walk back towards the house and that damn tree.

The chainsaw is heavier than I planned for and that along with the rain tries to exhaust me, but I must do this. I will not get pushed around anymore. I’m not going to stop until I prove that not only to myself, but my daughter. I bring the bar of the chainsaw down on the tree. Sawdust instantly gets thrown out everywhere. I feel a moment of elation, but in reality, I only manage to get the blade about an inch inside the tree when it stops cutting. I pull it out and start again. Apparently, the chain is so dull that I’m going to have to do this in slow increments. I don’t care. I’m doing it and that’s all that matters.

It’s raining so hard I can’t see, even with the lightning. Everything is blurry, because water is pouring down my face, interfering with my vision. The sound of the chainsaw, the pounding of the rain, and the thunder all combine to be so loud I hear nothing. Add all of that to the fact that I’m completely engrossed in what I’m doing, and I don’t hear or notice anything around me. So, when this giant bear behind me growls out, I scream like a little girl.