AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER36
Owen
I race up the stairs, and by the time I reach the highest point of the tower, I’m heaving and panting for breath. My body crashes into the door at the top, but when I tug on the handle it remains closed. Stars flash across my vision for a moment, and I reel backward, my heart shooting into my chest, gravity’s deadly pull threatening to back down the stairs to my doom.
I catch my fall, my flailing hand latching onto a railing. I grip it with white-knuckled fingers as I force air back into my lungs.
“Willow!” I bang a fist into the door, rattling the thin wood in its jamb. I kick it a few times, but it doesn’t give. It might be thin, but there’s no way I’m breaking it down. “Willow!”
I strain to hear anything past my racing heart, but there’s only a terrible silence on the other side of the door.
The stairwell’s central chamber is pitch black when I peer over the edge. I rock back on my heels, gritting my teeth as I stare around for an answer. I have to get into that bell tower. I have to keep Willow from jumping.
You could have stopped this from happening in the first place.
I shove that traitorous voice out of my head. I’m not a fucking idiot—I know I’m to blame for this. But wallowing in self-pity isn’t going to help anyone. Especially Willow.
My eyes dart around. There’s one place they keep being drawn back to, but I dismiss it as lunacy and look away again and again.
Until I realize it’s the only option.
Dread wells up deep inside me as I stare at the narrow window a few steps down from the landing. There are several of them at intervals along the side of the bell tower. All are fitted with glass and mesh, but this one is cracked.
Jesus Christ.
I swallow down a lump of fear and step to the window. Closing my eyes, I offer up a brief prayer to whatever deity just might be listening.
I pray to live and save Willow.
I pray to live and see Evie just one more time.
I pray that, when this over, I can somehow make things right.
