Page 75 of Montana Falls
I had to. Needed to.
My fingers fumbled against the edges of the lid, my heart racing, hands slick with anger and despair I would never shake. The lid was heavier than I expected, but I managed to lift it slowly, the soft creak of the wood sending a shiver down my spine as the entire world felt like it crashed and burned around me.
Maggie.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared down at her, my vision blurring, my pulse pounding in my ears. She wore a simple dress made of white lace, a pair of white crystal high heels on her feet, a decadent crown nestled in her silver hair.
She was perfect. Ethereal almost.
And she was holding a gun in her hand, aiming it at me as she opened her pretty blue eyes, that were burning with the heat of a thousand suns.
“Retta,” Maggie’s voice was a hoarse whisper, but it was undeniably her.Alive. And calling me by the false woman’s name. “Don’t move.”
Chapter Twenty Five, The Night Of Sapphire’s Death
The road stretched endlessly ahead, a dark ribbon winding through the middle of nowhere for a journey I didn’t want to be on. The world outside the car was a void—just black fields and shadows swallowing everything in sight and feeling the same way my heart did. Empty. Lifeless. Black.
My girl was dead.Gone. I was never going to see her again. Kiss her. Hold her. Never going to see her smile and hear her laugh. Never be able to tell her how much I loved her, and one day put a ring on her finger and make her mine in all the best ways.
Never going to spend the rest of my life with her at my side, growing old together.
I could barely see the funeral home in the distance, just a silhouette against the inky sky. No one had said a word in the last twenty minutes. The weight in the car was unbearable, likewe were being suffocated by our own thoughts, our owngrief. All of us had opened our mouths at one point, wanting to fill the void of darkness and despair. But none of us had. None of us could.
My fingers were clenched tight around the steering wheel, knuckles strained as I tried to keep my mind focused on the road. But it was impossible. My head was spinning, still a bit too drunk from the whiskey, even if I was the most sober of us all. Still wrecked from the hours my friends had spent drinking themselves into oblivion after the hospital. After they told us she was gone.
Sapphire.
I could still see the doctor’s face—his mouth moving, saying the words no one wanted to hear. Words that had torn me apart. The bullet had hit her heart. She’d been dead in the ambulance. Dead. Dead. Dead.
She hadn’t made it despite how much we’d all tried to save her.
She’d been gone before Beau had even found out she was hurt, and one of us had time to call his phone and get Ruby to answer it.
We had all lost it. Lincoln had punched the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Kody screamed curses, Rika holding him back as he’d tried to grab the doctor. Misha had just stood there, frozen, his face pale and blank like he couldn’t even process it. Price had walked outside and gone all the way home without a single fucking word. And me? I’d collapsed right there in the hallway, hands trembling, feeling like I’d been shot too. I couldn’t even remember getting up and going home. Couldn’t remember any of us doing anything at all.
Sapphire was our girl, and we hadn’t saved her. Protected her.
I couldn’t feel or think about anything other than that.
Until Rika had come into the lounge at some point, appearing out of nowhere with a grim expression I didn’t understand. She’d dropped her rifle on the table and turned to Kody, speaking only to him.
“I shot Sapphire. She told me to do it.”She’d stared at him weirdly.
He’d got right to his feet, getting in her face.“What the fuck did you just say?”
“She said she had some crazy bitch plan, and she needed me to shoot her; something about you needing to be in the crowd so her stalker didn’t think it was all a plan and that you’d done it.”
Kody had almost collapsed back onto the couch as we’d all turned to watch their conversation, even though we hadn’t understood it.
“It wasn’t her stalker?”He’d asked her something.
“No, fuckface. I just said it was me.”
He’d glared at her.“Dorika, I swear to fucking god I’m about to swing for you if you don’t explain yourself.”
Rika had grabbed his shirt, yanking him closer as she almost yelled at him.“Then listen to me! I shot her – you know I’m a good shot. Better than you.”
“Debateable.”He’d growled.“What’s your point?”
