Page 161 of Chemistry: The Chemist

My chest caved as the oxygen fled my body.

Range.

Rugger.

She wasn’t as invincible as she portrayed to be. Her heart was pure. She loved hard and the man who’d helped create her, she loved most. I used my fist to pat my chest, desperate for air.

“Rome.”

Barely audible, I called the name of the person who worried me most. She’d reached twenty mere months ago. Fatherless was no way to begin the journey of adulthood.

Mercer.

Makai.

Malachi.

“Milo.”

He was the youngest, the baby of the bunch when our mother committed the murder-suicide.

I wasn’t there.

I’m not there.

The pain was crippling. Clarke had welcomed me as a permanent resident by the time everything went downhill. The system had welcomed me as an inmate this time, filling me with unprecedented amounts of regret.

I was in the middle of the ocean at a maximum security prison laying on a flat pillow and previously used sheets. At my fucking lowest, I’d been assured there was more depths to reach. I didn’t have the privilege of holding my siblings in my arms as they cried into my chest. I didn’t have the privilege to wipe the tears from their eyes, although it was only to make room for more. I didn’t have the privilege of lying to them like everything would be okay.

Not this time and not the last time, either. That shit cut deep.

EIGHTEEN

Nine months after the raid…

Please. What is it?

My vibrating phone quickly became a thorn in my side. I opened one eye, peeping at the digital clock beside the bed.

5:06 a.m.

The vibration stopped momentarily. Seconds later, it began again. I’d only been asleep for thirty minutes. I desperately needed more time, more rest. Whoever was calling desperately needed to speak to me. So, rather than letting their insistence keep me awake longer than necessary, I patted the bed in an attempt to locate my phone.

“Johanson!”

Bradford was vexed. I could hear it in his tone. Concerned, I flung the covers from my body and sat at the edge of the bed.

“Is everything okay?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Bradford. What’s going on?”

“Has no one contacted you this morning? Fuck!”

“No. What’s going on? Talk. I don’t understand.”

“He’s gone, Johanson.”

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