Page 51

Where the fuck were the police? I wanted them to hurry up and grab her.

Then give them a reason to act. Poke the bear, big guy.

"Angie, I don't give a fuck about you, your dad, or your money." I looked down at her and with as much malice as I could muster I spat, "You wanted to see me to say goodbye. So? Say it."

"No," she said with confidence, "I told you. We're soulmates. Now? I know we are. Before we died? I was only pretty sure we were… that's why I got so furious when Raymond showed me those pictures of you and Sloane together.

"Who the fuck is Raymond?"

"The private investigator I hired to follow you after we broke up." She said it so matter-of-factly, as if I was expected to know that she'd paid somebody to keep tabs on me. "He showed me pictures of you and Sloane having coffee together to celebrate your birthday."

The little cafe at the corner of 7th and Spring… the one that doesn't exist yet.

"Coffee with Sloane?" I took two steps back as the enormity of everything she said hit me. "Angie, you and I… we had been separated for over a decade by then."

"Not a decade, baby," she said as she crept forward, keeping the same distance between us. "It had only been nine years, three hundred and forty-seven days. Don't pretend like you didn't know that."

Fuck, fuck, fuck, this crazy bitch.

She held her hands out again, imploring me to embrace her. "Baby, I never stopped watching you, I never stopped keeping other women away, I never stopped waiting for you to come back to me."

"For ten years? "

"True love doesn't have an expiration date, Levi.

And once I woke back up here, once I knew we really were soulmates, I carved your name into my skin.

" She pulled down the collar of her coat, briefly showcasing her collarbone where red angry welts stared back at me, in a feeble attempt at my name. "I am yours in body and soul, baby."

"Good fucking god, Angie!" I stepped back, revolted. I felt dizzy and sick. This needed to end, I needed to get away. I didn't know where Harlan was or the rest of the police were, but it was obvious that I was on my own out there.

Just kill her. There's nobody around. There's nobody who will miss her. Fuck, you'd be doing the psycho bitch a favor, her mind is so far gone.

While I fought the urge to break my promise to Sloane and choke Angie to death, she continued to rant.

"After her husband killed himself and you started seeing Sloane again? I knew it would only be a matter of time. I saw you running into her open arms and I knew she'd forgive you eventually."

Angie's ranting became screaming. "It was as if you had forgotten about me! About us!" Her nails dragged across her cheeks, leaving angry red trails as if she were crying bloody tears. "I did the only thing I could to save you from her… I killed you."

Then her revolting smile returned, odious, ghastly, and now bloody, as the crack in her mind grew from a fracture to a canyon.

She killed me?

I asked, "The truck? That was you?"

She nodded.

"If you loved me," I struggled to say, "why kill me?"

She held her bloody hands over her heart and stepped closer. My mind screamed to run, to flee, but it was as if my feet had been frozen to the ground as she drew nearer .

"I wanted it to be a murder suicide," she pouted.

"I wanted us to go out together; together in death forever, baby.

It would have been a tragedy that made headlines…

but I survived. I was trapped in the hospital, fading in and out of consciousness, delirious with the knowledge that I had killed you, but didn't get to die with you.

After a few days of that personal Hell, I died from heartache. "

You probably died from the massive internal bleeding and organ failure you incurred during your high speed vehicular murder.

"You crazy bitch." The words slipped out, reflexive.

"Levi, don't throw this second chance away. We can be together again. We can-"

“No.” The word barely made it past the lump in my throat. I forced myself to stand tall, to stay composed as my voice came out jagged, but firm. “There’s no 'we' Angie. There never was.”

Her face contorted as her eyes went vacant; the rage, love, sorrow, heartache, hope all snuffed out. “I gave you everything, Levi.”

“And you lost everything. This is over, Angie.”

She slithered toward me, back to being within arm's reach, back to being far too close.

“Sloane will never love you like I do, Levi,” she hissed.

“I know you. I know the real you. I know you in ways she never could. All the dark parts of you that you hide from the world, your rage, your hate, the rot underneath the mask you wear? You showed me. And I chose you.”

Her presence was electric and unstable. The distance between us shrank as she slinked closer, her body a gliding shadow, and there it was… that kernel of midnight in my soul. A shriveled, abhorrent fragment of the Old Me that still craved her .

She reached a hand out to touch my face again, as if she sensed my weakness. Maybe she did. Her fingers, now caked with dried blood, grazed my cheek.

And all I thought of was Sloane's radiant beauty.

I slapped Angie's hand away, recoiled from her, and backpedaled away. "Stay the fuck away from me, my family, my life, and my Sloane. If I ever see you again, I will bury you."

And with that, any semblance she had of sanity snapped.

There was no hesitation in her body, no restraint, only the heat of a thousand Hells bursting from her throat as she screamed an ear shattering, incomprehensible, banshee wail. She crouched, as if she were about to pounce on me.

My thoughts scattered, panic crashing through me.

Would she kill me again? Will Sloane be safe if she does?

I heard a rustle in the trees. Movement caught my eye as Angie spun toward the sound, startled.

“Police! Hands in the air!”

Lights exploded around us, blinding in the darkness. Officers surged forward, weapons raised. Angie looked monstrous; bloodied face, wild-eyed, feral. She didn’t run. Simply turned to glare at me, hurt and confusion etched deep across her face.

“You did this… to me?”

I held her gaze. “No. You did this to yourself the moment you hurt my wife.”

The metallic click of cuffs snapped through the air as an officer lunged towards her. Angie kicked, thrashed, and screamed awful, inhuman sounds. I watched as one of the officers desperately tried to cuff her, but, in this moment of adrenaline, she was freakishly strong.

“Leviiiiii,” she howled, “you’ll regret this! ”

Then chaos. A flash of metal in her hand. A gun, drawn from her coat during the struggle.

Everything slowed. Shouts from the officers of, “Gun! Down! Get down!” Their movements blurred as my world ticked by.

There was a hand that grabbed my shoulder, yanking me to the ground as Angie turned the weapon toward me.

Her eyes. Fuck, they weren’t just wild. They were empty. Hollow. As if Angie had never even existed and it was some eldritch thing staring at me through her empty sockets.

I pitied her. Not only for what she’d become, but for all I had done to bring her there, to that moment. We were standing in the wreckage of choices I couldn’t undo, burned-out husks of a ruined life I should have never touched. Hatred crackled between us, fueled by every mistake I let fester.

And in that moment of brutal clarity I realized… if the universe was cruel enough to give me one more chance, then it was cruel enough to take it away.

And how fitting would it be, if this were how my second chance ended?

Gunfire. Three sharp, echoing pops.

Her body jerked with each shot. Blood bloomed across her chest, and she stumbled back, her expression morphing into stunned confusion. She dropped to her knees. Her once-empty gaze, now filled to bursting from an unlived life of regrets, locked onto mine. Time snapped back into motion.

Radio static. Officers shouting.

Angie lay sprawled on the concrete, the gun kicked far from her outstretched fingers. One officer screamed for a medic, kneeling beside her as the others secured the scene .

I backed away, arms wrapped around myself. Detective Harlan was beside me, solid and steady, his presence the only thing keeping me grounded. I realized he'd been the one who pulled me to the ground.

“Come on, Levi. Let’s get you away from here.”

Later, I sat in the back of an ambulance, the coarse wool of a blanket scratching against my neck, the weight of it both comforting and suffocating.

A styrofoam cup sat between my palms, its heat seeping into my frozen fingers, the faint scent of burnt coffee cutting through the metallic tang of blood.

I fixated on the steam rising from the cup, thin, wavering threads that disappeared into the cold night air. Sirens howled in the distance, sharp and rising, but underneath them, I could still hear it; the phantom snap of gunfire, reverberating through my bones.

Detective Harlan sat beside, both of us silent for a time.

With as much sarcasm as I could muster, which wasn't much at that moment, I said, "Thought you boys were waiting for Christmas with how long it took you to show up. You get lost on the way?"

Harlan laughed at that, deep and hearty. "As a matter of fact, we were exactly where you told us to be… which was not here, Levi."

And that was when I discovered I'd texted him the wrong address.

That particular park was massive, with multiple entrances, playgrounds, parking lots… restrooms. I'd texted Harlan the address for the main entrance, which was on the other side of the lake. The police had been set up and waiting over there the entire time.

When I asked him how he'd found me, my heart swelled and I nearly cried in front of him.

Harlan said, "I did the sensible thing any good detective would do when looking for a missing man; I called your wife. One hell of a woman you have, Levi. You're damned fortunate she keeps a GPS tracker on your phone."

"Yeah," I said as I nodded, "she's the best."

The best?

The only. Sloane had saved my life tonight without even trying or realizing it.

Then again, in a way, Sloane had saved my life every night.