"Let me die the moment my love dies.
Let me not outlive my own capacity to love.
Let me die still loving, and so, never die."
- Mary Zimmerman
I surface from unconsciousness when the morning light hits my face ruthlessly. I moan at the searing pain coursing through my head. The warmth of the daylight on my skin is enough to make me realize I'm under the open sky. I half-expect to be in a boat, almsot nostalgic at that thought but it doesn't sway.
However, the wind tells me I have to think high. A few moments pass before I succeed opening my eyes.
"I thought you were going to take forever." A groan follows after the familiar voice, like a knife shoving into my head. I grit my teeth at the pain.
Megan's blue eyes stare back at me, impassive, with no loath, no pity, no nothing. She stands on her heels, letting her long brown curls catch the sunlight. Her resemblances to me scare me the most. I immediately assume this is how she used to look like back when she was with Silas. She looks like me but it doesn't surprise me at all.
"Where's my son?" I whisper, keeping my voice void of fear.
She smiles, nearly genuine before pointing her chin to my right. "It's scary, isn't it? He looks so much like his father."
Terror freezes me for a second as I try to turn. When I finally can, I turn my head slowly, ignoring the pain it causes.
My baby's crawled into a ball, sleeping peacefully, his cheeks flushed more than usual. He had been crying before he fell asleep. Instinctively, I endeavour to reach for him only to find my hands bounded behind my waist. My head turns so quickly towards Megan that the agonizing pain takes over my whole body.
"Why him, Megan?"
She smiles once again, her cheeks bright with color as she leans against a rusty binocular. For the first time I realize where we are. The unmanageable wind, the surroundings: the telltale signs of where I had first kissed Silas.
The Empire State observatory deck.
She doesn't even know it herself that she has brought this to end just where it had started.
Megan finally responds, "Your son can bring you here and you can bring Silas here."
The horror I have brought my son in front of can't be unshielded, not with my tied hands. She has a gun pointed at me which I notice without any reaction.
I am not intimidated, not entirely but the thought of my son, so small, so innocent, watching the same thing terrifies me. I don't want him to wake up until his father or even Adrian arrives and this ends.
This is where everything had started and will end.
"Mom?"
At the hesitant whisper, I am startled. Dread like a pool of sweat streams down my skin when two large blue eyes meet mine.
"Hi, honey." I lean towards him, hiding my tied hands tactfully, wishing I could touch him, shield him with my whole body.
"Good morning, Silas." Megan conceals the gun with her jacket and steps forward, kneeling down before my son. "Is it okay if I call you Silas?"
He squints up at me and at my silence, he only shakes his head at her. That earns him a laugh.
"He is his father's son." She turns, her eyes mocking me. "Just as fond of you as his father is."
"If you touch him, I'll kill you," I mutter, my voice calm.
"Am I supposed to be scared?" She lowers her voice, scrutinizing me before looking down at her wristwatch. Silas, from beside me, squeezes my leg at the sight of her gun.
YOU ARE READING
Here's to Us (Blood Money #2)
Romance"What we had is over, Dawn. You don't have to do this anymore. You're free to go." I traced the glass separating us with my fingers, looking into his green eyes and whispered to the phone, "So you want to know why I'm still here?" He just stare...
