Page 117 of Together in Harmony
He lurches.
Screech and the knife are falling in my direction.
Time slows, I try to move but forget about the chain that holds me in place. I can sense movement from the doorway. Screech has the dagger raised and I see it coming down in an arc, driving toward me.
But then there is another body.
A body that falls between me and the knife.
Lennox! No!
I’m flattened on the ground. My head bounces off something hard, and I can feel something warm and sticky flooding over me. I know it is blood.
Please let it be mine and not Lennox’s.
Another second and my eyesight clears. It is now that I see my father’s face next to mine. I can feel hot, thick fluid all over my torso. There is a foul smell of iron, and shit and decay, and it is all pouring from this husk of a man, who has never given me a moment's notice.
But in this moment, he is giving his life for me.
I put my hands either side of his face. His eyes convey a hundred messages.
They tell me he loves me
They tell me his is sorry
They tell me goodbye.
“It’s OK,” I tell him. “You for saved me. You protected me.”
I hope he hears me.
"I love you,” I say.
“I forgive you,” I tell him.
In the next second, I am in Lennox’s arms.
Hugo and a man I don’t know have captured Screech. Hugo has an arm around Screech’s throat, choking him. Asa is on his knees beside my father.
He is looking at the knife.
The knife stabbed into the back of my father.
My dad.
HUGO
Epilogue
Brookes is making a new exhibition.
Gaslit: Ode to the Sociopath. It tells the Screech Towers story.
I’m not mad about it.
I’m not mad about anything, currently. Hard to be mad in paradise.
Asa is headed back to Harmony's lounger carrying huge ice cream sundaes. Out on the calm turquoise blue sea, Lennox is doing donuts on a jet ski.
