Page 96 of Empowered
Only. Her.
The knife trembled in her hand. The edge of the blade pricked a bit of skin. No blood, but it made Sarah pull her arm back and kick away from the wheelchair.
“What are you doing?”
Natsuko stood in the doorway, the bodyguard right behind her. Sarah didn’t bother to hide the pocketknife in her hand. Russell’s eyes lingered on his fiancée, a woman he had no love for, but would be his only savior now.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Natsuko put up a good front. She wasn’t like Jill, who squawked and flapped her arms to make herself look bigger. Natsuko had more class than that. More smarts, too. So even though her face paled in fright over what Sarah might suddenly do, she wouldn’t let it leak into her voice. She would sound like the commanding lady of the house who was in control of every little thing happening beneath her nose.
Sarah shoved her knife back into her pocket. She spared Russell one last scathing look before walking away with her head held high. She’d keep it that way, too, until she made it to the front hall and realized that her cab was gone.
Instead, Lucas stood in the driveway, between his car and the front door.
Sarah stopped at the top of the steps. “Luke… what are you doing here?”
He came to a halt at the bottom of the same steps. “Sarah! What the hell is going on? I got a call from both Damon and Jill that you’re going around town saying…” He saw the knife poking out of her pocket. “The fuck are you up to, Angel?”
Angel…
Sarah made it to the bottom of the stairs before falling to her knees in the dusty driveway. Lucas rushed to her side.
“Please…” The tears of anger she held back for so long finally came again. “Please, help me. I don’t know what to do! I… I almost…”
“What?” He shook her shoulders, knocking her wig off-center from the force of his fear.
“I almost killed him.”
Sarah clasped her hand over her mouth when she admitted that.I was going to do it. I was going to make him bleed like he made me bleed.Blood for blood. It’s what God wanted, right? It’s what an angel would do, right?
“For fuck’s sake, Sarah!”
“Please!” She buried herself in his hold, stuffing her face into his warm, firm chest and squeezing her eyes so tightly that she could no longer cry. “Please, help me! I can’t live like this anymore!”
Lucas pushed her until her tear-stained face looked him in the eyes again. “What do you want, Sarah? What do youwant?”
Always that question. He kept asking her that, because she never told him the truth.
Clarity struck her. Above his head, the blue sky shone so brightly that not even the few clouds around could mar the translucent sheen of a beautiful day. What would it be like to fly away? To spread her broken wings and leave all of this behind? To embrace a new life being whoever she wanted to be? A healthier version of herself? Not this Angel bullshit anymore. She wanted the wings of an angel, but she was tired of falling from grace. Every time she fell, she took another man down with her.
She didn’t want to do that to Lucas. She wanted him to be happy and to have everything he wanted, even if that meant giving her up.
“I want to fly away,” she said. “I want to forget all of this has ever happened. I want to put it behind me.”
He kissed her forehead, his hands so firm against her cheeks that she felt every ounce of his strength fueling this hold on her. If there was any man in the world who could help her, surely, it was him.No, no, he needs to stay away from me. If I ask him for help like this, I’ll destroy him!
“What do you really want, my angel?”
Her eyes glazed over as she stared into the bright expanse of the big blue sky above them. When she spoke, her voice dissipated on the crisp air like forgotten smoke.
“Freedom.”
