AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The dawning light reflecting off the buildings in the distance out the panoramic windows gave me my answer.
When I turned away to rush out the door, the shadow of something blocking the sunrise darted down the wall.
No.
The unmistakable crunch of metal was followed by the blare of a car alarm and a woman screaming far below.
The imageof him falling backward from the roof played over and over against my closed eyelids despite the tears trying desperately to wash it away.
He’s gone.
He just… fell.
I screamed my pain, thrashing uselessly against all the bindings keeping me caged tight. I screamed until my throat was raw. Until the pit in my stomach turned into a chasm, draining away all the good things until there was nothing but this.
Nothing but bad, bad,bad.
There would never be anything good again.
Through the tears, I found him watching me, his head cocked to one side as he relished in the sight of me broken. This time, I couldn’t bring myself to care if this was exactly what he wanted.
I didn’t care about anything at all.
I wanted to expunge the last three minutes of existence. Go back to hallucinating peacefully in the dark room.
Hallucinating.
That was it. Wasn’t it?
It didn’t happen.
It didn’t happen.
“Oh but it did, Angel,” Drake said, coming to sooth me with a palm against my cheek, and I realized I was chanting the words like a mantra aloud. I tried to bite him, but he pulled away too quickly, leaving my teeth to click against nothing.
“I’ll leave you to process this… loss. I have somethingsto take care of. More Crows to turn to roadkill.”
This made my breath catch, and my skin burned everywhere. I pushed and pulled against the chair, shouting obscenities at him as he backed out the door, letting it fall closed behind him.
As one door closed another door opened, and I jerked my gaze back up, blinking through tear-stained vision as Grey crashed out the door to the roof, rushing over uneven gravel to the edge of the building.
“Grey!” I shouted uselessly, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I could only see him through the live camera feeds Drake left open on the screen. “Don’t look!”
He tripped against the ledge, throwing his upper body over to look down, and froze.
I couldn’t breathe, but the pain in my chest was beyond measure as I watched him take in Corvus far below. Grey staggered back from the edge, his eyes blinking, face white.
His head shook. His palms went to his knees as he bent his head, unsteady, lips moving wordlessly.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked to the screen. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He rose up suddenly and kicked the gravel, arching his back, his mouth open in a scream I couldn’t hear but that still shattered my heart all the same.
Grey’s lower lip trembled as he fell to his knees, eyes shut, face tipped up to the cloudless sky. Hands limp in his lap.
His grief filled me, doubling my own, pushing me to the edge of what I could take. A heart couldn’t handle this kind of pain. Surely,surelyany minute now it would just stop.
I hoped it would.
