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Julia
Was this what it felt like to die?
I always imagined this sort of transcendental experience as your soul left your body, everything unburdened and weightless, all your troubles gone.
My meemaw often said she believed dying was like going home. And not the going home to heaven I’d heard so often during church and Sunday school. Meemaw said it was like finally being where you belonged.
Like finally being at peace.
But as the gunshot echoed, all other sounds muffled and distorted, I didn’t feel at peace. Didn’t feel unburdened. Didn’t feel…ethereal.
Instead, a weight crushed me, making it difficult to breathe.
Then, through my confusion, I heard a voice. But it wasn’t Nick’s sinister drawl.
It was deeper. More pained. But more loving at the same time.
And it had an Australian accent that still managed to make my heart skip a beat, even now.
Suddenly, the weight suffocating me disappeared. I sucked in a welcome breath, a pair of arms wrapping around me, warm and familiar.
“Thank God,” Lachlan murmured, dragging me onto his lap as he showered me with kisses. “Thank fucking God.”
“Pretty sure some people would consider that blasphemous,” I choked out.
“I don’t give a damn. Not after…” He trailed off, pulling back, scanning my frame. “Did… Did he hurt you?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, unsure how to answer that question. Nick may not have caused any lasting scars. But I feared the trauma would stay with me a long time.
“It doesn’t matter. He can’t hurt me anymore. He—”
A moan cut through, both of us snapping our eyes toward where Nick lay a few feet away, blood pouring out of his shoulder and onto the carpet.
“Julia…” He exhaled a shaky breath, hand covered in blood as he attempted to stop the flow, to no avail. “Help me,” he begged, voice strained.
“Help you?” I sobbed, pushing out of Lachlan’s hold and standing, starting toward Nick. “Why would I help you after everything you’ve done to me?”
“Julia, no…” Lachlan scrambled to his feet and grabbed my hand, trying to prevent me from taking another step.
I shot my gaze to his, silently telling him I had to do this. That I needed closure. That I needed to free myself from the chains Nick had shackled around me years ago.
Once and for all.
He nodded in understanding, dropping his hold on me.
“All the times you hurt me,” I continued, eyes not leaving Nick’s as his skin paled more with every passing second. “All the nights I had to force myself to stay awake because I was petrified of what you would do to me in my sleep.”
I lowered myself to my knees as sirens wailed in the distance.
And just like that morning Ethan came over to convince us Daxton Shea was behind all of this just to throw us off his scent, I knew they were headed this way.
Knew I had a decision to make.
I could sit here and watch Nick suffer, knowing the second the first responders arrived, they’d have an ethical obligation to do everything in their power to save his life. If they were successful, he’d return to prison and be charged with all the new crimes he’d committed this past week. Hopefully the murder charge would stick this time and he’d get the needle in the arm he deserved.
But that could take years.
Years I’d be forced to live in fear for my life. For Lachlan’s life. For Imogene’s life.
