Page 80 of Salvation

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The soundof the gun going off echoes in my head. It bounces and flows as if it’s in a tunnel. It’s so loud.

Oh my God…

Oh my God… I shot him.

I shot Gabrial!

I had to.

He was going to kill Luke.

I had to.

That didn’t just happen. This is a nightmare. It’s not real.

It can’t be real.

My gaze strays across the room and the walls start to close in around me. I can’t breathe. All I can focus on is him… Gabrial… a man I love… lying on the ground. A dark red puddle steadily increases in size around him. I hear a mournful, devastated wail. The sound pierces my heart.

I just killed him.

I just shot the man I love…

One of the men I love.

I killed one man I love to save the other.

I just killed my child’s father...

Luke’s voice…

I hear Luke’s voice. He’s screaming my name. And that terrible, mournful wail.

“Hope… Hope… look at me… Stay with me. Goddammit. Stay with me. You have to get out of here. You can’t be here right now, Hope. They’re already on the way. I called for backup when I got here. You can’t be here when the police show up.”

The screams don’t stop. They get louder, more frantic. The sound curdles my blood.

I realize it’s me…

That inhuman sound is coming from me.

I can’t. I can’t stop screaming. The horror is too much. If anything, I scream even louder. I hear Luke’s voice as if I’m underwater. I can’t understand him.

Wait, he’s pleading with me.

He wants me to look away from the scene on the dirty floor of the warehouse, but I can’t. I can’t look away from him. From Gabrial. He’s on the ground. My vision starts to waver, and I blink to try to make the scene disappear.

It will be okay. This isn’t real. None of this is real. It’s just a night terror. Like I had as a child.

If I take my time and breathe with my eyes closed, when I open them, I’ll see everything is okay.

I’ll be in my childhood pink bedroom, and everything will be fine.

Something sounds like bubbles under water. Opening my eyes, I look past Luke as he stands in front of me, his hands tight on my shoulders, the fingers of his uninjured hand digging into my arms. His eyes are wild and desperate. He’s harshly shoving me toward the door trying to get me to move, to leave, and look away from Gabrial lying on the ground, as the, so scarlet it’s almost black, puddle continues to spread and darken.

That’s black… it can’t be blood. Blood is red and that is almost black. Blood isn’t that dark. It’s not real.

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