Page 5 of Genesis
“Look! It’s still there!” Amelia pointed to the cottage we used to stay in on the edge of the lake. We were up on the cliffs, butwe knew every area of this lake well enough to recognize it. “Zan and Cadoc met there.”
Cadoc choked behind me, and then his lighter sparked.
“Yeah, they did.” I stepped up beside her. “Look, Amelia, there’s something you need to know.”
She looked up at me, her dark eyes knowing. “Something happened to Zan,” she said. “Cadoc would never leave him for this long.”
Cadoc coughed on another choked sob behind us.
My chest cracked wide open. “Zan—”
“Zade!” Cadoc screamed, his gun firing at rapid intervals.
Before I could even turn around to see what happened, Amelia’s head exploded to bits, coating me in bone and brain matter. My ears muffled and my eyes blinked. Stunned. The shocked expression on Amelia’s face was still staring at me, and her upright body barely even moved. A moment suspended in time. A window into Hell. I looked into her eyes, refusing to believe another death had happened on this fucking cliff. No.
No. No. No. No.
“Zade!” Cadoc screamed again, running towards us. “Fuck. Fuck, Amelia!” He caught her as she fell, holding her tight and tackling me with him. Bullets zipped over our heads, but I was still staring into my sister’s dead eyes.
My sister, who I barely got the chance to know. My sister, who had a different mother from me and Zan. My sister, who spent so much of her life happy while I was being tortured in the dark. My sister…
“She’s gone, Zade,” Cadoc said.
No. She couldn’t be. Life was not this fucking cruel! How? I was the angry, vengeful asshole, and yet, I was the only one left breathing. Me. It should be me bleeding into the cliffs.
Cadoc shifted Amelia into my arms, and then he put his back to us. His gun fired and reloaded. Fired and reloaded. Ijust stared at Amelia. He shouted something about being under attack, but I didn’t care anymore.Let me die here with my brother and sister.
“Cadoc, throw me in the lake. Throw us in the lake.” At least our graves would be together.
“No, you dumb fuck.” He stood me up and put Amelia’s small body into my arms. “I promised him.” He glared at me, blue eyes on fire. “I fucking promised him I’d protect you.”
“Don’t,” I whispered. Begged. “Don’t.”
And he didn’t. A bullet struck me in the shoulder, and another hit him in the side. Before the world tipped sideways, we were falling down the cliffs with Amelia locked between our bloody and dying bodies.
Hello again, Zan.
CHAPTER 3
ONE SECOND TO PRETEND
CADOC
This fuckinglake was the life and the death of me. Zade was still breathing, but he had passed out. Even dragging him to the shore hadn’t roused him, and I started to think it was because he hoped for death. Amelia was in his arms, dead with only half a fucking head, but I knew he’d want to say goodbye to her.
A stray bullet.
A gunfight that hadn’t been aiming for us.
Gone.
Like Zan.
I buckled over, the ache in my broken heart worse than the bullet in my ribs. The pain was unbearable and all-consuming. I collapsed against the sandy shore, breathing in the grit and hoping for death.
What was life without Zan? How was I supposed to move forward? My heart pounded out of control, each thump a battle cry against my already stinging ribs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking breathe, and the more I tried, the more sand I inhaled, filling my lungs with the small grains that ebbed and flowed with the fluid motion of Zan’s watery grave.
Gone. Zan gone. My world gone. The only piece of a good life I’d ever had… gone. I couldn’t go on without him.
