Page 3 of Cruelest Contract
“Julian!” calls a frightened voice from the trees.
“I’m all right,” he calmly answers and the weight of his body leaves mine.
I might have just stayed there sobbing in the grass for ages but Julian gently pulls me up. He holds me by the arms when my legs threaten to melt. Behind him, five anxious boys stand at the edge of the tree line, his brothers and mine.
I’m relieved to see them. But they are no longer badass teenagers passing around a forbidden liquor bottle. They’ve become terrified, wide-eyed children.
Angelo mutters the word, “Fuck,” and vomits on the ground.
Gabriel stares at me, then shifts his eyes to something in the distance and sinks to his knees with a heartbroken cry.
Fortunato points a shaking finger. “Look, it’s Dad! He’s running over here.”
Julian’s eyes scan the space above my head and his tense posture relaxes a little when he sees his brother is telling the truth.
If their father is alive and running to his kids then maybe mine is too. And my mother. And the rest of them might also be safe, impossible as this seems.
But one look over my shoulder shatters the illusion. There’s been no miracle.
Images burn into my brain with cruel speed. In an instant I know they can never be erased.
Bodies are lying on the ground. A few are moving. Most are not. The blood is everywhere. Blood now stains a white bridal gown. Blood is splattered on the tables and the patio tiles.
My mother bought matching dresses for the two of us. When I reminded her that I hate wearing pink, she tickled me witha laugh and said the color was salmon. My father told her she looked beautiful and she blushed.
She really did look beautiful.
She’ll also never wear that salmon colored dress again. It’s now stained and ruined among the fallen bodies.
A single piercing shriek rips painfully from my throat and then stalls. The devastating weight of grief crushes my lungs from within and there’s no more air to scream with.
“Don’t look,” Julian orders and cups my face in his hands. “Just don’t look at it. Look at me instead.”
Panic threatens to engulf me. Every breath feels like a punishment.
And yet I do as he says. I look up into Julian Tempesta’s determined dark eyes and I keep staring at him, only at him, while trying to wish away the horror all around us.
Now I know how the end can come for you.
It can come for you under a beautiful summer sky in the dreamy moments before twilight.
It can come for you amid the laughter of your family and set to music that cuts off with no warning.
No matter how long I cling to Julian, this terrible new reality still exists.
And it waits for me.
TWELVE YEARS LATER…
1
JULIAN
“What do you know?” Tye’s boot kicks the charred pile. “This Dollar Store phony cowboy had a gold tooth.”
“Feel free to call dibs,” Fort grumbles and stabs the shovel into the earth again to deepen the hole. “Nobody will fight you for it.”
“Speak for yourself.” Getty hunches down for a closer look. “I like souvenirs.”
