Page 333 of Vicious Saint
“What…happened?” I ask, voice a low rasp. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the parking lot of ShopSmart, and severely injured. So please don’t try to move again until paramedics arrive.”
His answer must have triggered something through the fog in my brain, because right after I can feel the cold from the ground stinging my cheek. Smell the stench of smoke wafting in the air.
Smoke.
Awareness hits like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
The blast of heat. The necklace.
The cold. The shopping bags.
The vision of every second leading up to this moment plays on rewind, screeching to a halt then fast forwarding again to when I found my necklace on the ground.
“Carlo!” I cry as loud as my hoarse voice will allow. “Where are you?”
“Please relax,” the man insists. “Your parents are almost here.”
“I don’t want them. I need Carlo.”
“Shhhh. Everything’s going to be okay,” he promises, but there’s not an ounce of conviction, and it scares the fuck out of me even more.
I’m proven why it should when my gaze lands on Jerome’s lifeless body next to a dumpster with a bullet hole oozing from the side of his head. No sign of the new guy.
Sheer panic floods my chest, pumping my heart so wildly I think I may be having a heart attack. I call out for Carlo again, this time in Italian, on the off chance he didn’t understand me. Then burst out a sob when I get nothing in return.
I never was the religious type, but right now, my only instinct is to pray.Please, please let him be okay.
“I’m so sorry.” The level of anguish in the man’s apology is all it takes to find the strength to lift myself up to sit, wincing as several ends of what feels like glass pierces my back.
It hurts, but not as bad as knowing Carlo may be too.
So, I say “fuck you” to all of it.
The blood, the pain, the impaled skin.
It takes me a while to turn my body around enough to spot the truck, but when I do, the glass in my back becomes the least form of torture.
Everything slows, turning grayscale as I’m ripped to shreds by the sight before me. The Escalade, charred to a crisp, and in the driver seat of it is the remnants of a body.
Carlo’s body.
No.
No.
Please. Fucking. No!
There’s not a prayer powerful enough to stop what happens next. It starts with a whimper, slowly rising to a cry, then from the depths of my soul comes a high pitched sound I’ve never heard before.
I go on like this with tears cascading down my cheeks, no words, just endless screams of horror tearing at my throat.
Several people run over, some even calling my name, but I’m beyond help. My heart is broken.
Carlo’s gone.
The pain he must have felt. The fear. The family back home he loves so much, the thought of all of it consumes me.
