Falling With Grace

I withdrew my hand from his warm touch. “All I want is to go back home and erase this from my memory.” I shook my head. My voice softened as I rested my hands in my lap, the beads in my pocket hard and forewarning. I let my gaze fall away from his. “There’s no reason for me to lie. Your mother told me who it was. She even shared a bit about her husband.”

Inhaling, my shoulders rose and fell like the ebb and flow of a tide. A dense tension enveloped us, his silence standing as a palpable force.

“I’m not out to get you, Elias.” My lip quirked on one side. “Look over your other shoulder. That’s who you’re hunting.” I savored my orange juice, then glided the cup onto the counter before slipping from my stool. “Thank you for breakfast.”

Elias stood frozen, an embodiment of a lion in the quiet before the pounce. His gaze lingering on the black and white photographcradled in his hands.

A turbulent storm of anger and hurt surged across his face, each emotion etched deep into the furrows of his brow. A somber shadow danced in the depths of his eyes, a silent melody of sorrow that echoed through his rigid posture.

Every muscle held a whispered secret, and the air around him crackled.

The twisted game of life extended its influence beyond just me, ensnaring all the players in its macabre performance. And it pressed me flat against the bottom of its deep, dark hole, swallowed by the shadows of its relentless machinations.

21

Grace

Iswiped at the bead of sweat dripping down my forehead, the painted ceiling my source of entertainment in the middle of the night.

The soft mattress cushioned me in a sweet embrace, yet it couldn’t put my mind at ease—to stop the intrusive thoughts—and lull me to sleep.

He’s getting married.

His kindness comes with strings.

I sighed, my fists pounding the bed at my sides. Huffing, I plopped to my good side, tucking my hand beneath my pillow.

One-thirty-four…

“Ugh.”

My upper lip curled as I stared at the looming clock beside my bed.

A haunting scream pitched into my room like a catapult for the stars.

My legs froze, the restlessness vanishing, and my lungs caught in my chest as I strained my hearing.

Was that a scream?

Feet shifted at my door.

My pulse thumped in my neck.

Another scream erupted, its guttural cries reverberating with a depth that betrayed a man’s voice.

“Please. I do everything you ask of me.”

Daniel’s voice lifts to the rafters, the fists belting him in the face, turning his skin into a glistening, crimson mess, his flesh like he’s been run through a meat tenderizer.

I leaped from my sweat-soaked sheets and scrambled beneath the bed. My knees pressed against my chest. I huddled in the darkness as the shadows under the doorway remained still.

Who’s there?

Why aren’t myguards helping?

Another howl of pain tore through the air, violating the once-silent space around me.

What’s happening out there?