Page 141 of Tempt Me (Dark Odyssey 4)

It swirls over me, tickling my nose. There’s no way that I can avoid being affected by it. The men had on gas masks.

Clever.

That bastard. I give him credit. He had to basically tie us up to beat us. Couldn’t fight like a real man. At the end of the day, though, what does it matter? The end result is the result you want, and that’s what he’s getting.

He did say I wouldn’t like it if I pissed him off. He wasn’t joking. I dash back to the second floor in an attempt to get to the entrance to the safe room by the bookshelf. Then I hear it. The sound of my little boy’s cry.

I look through the window in an instant as it turns louder. It’s a loud screech like he’s in pain. My heart shatters when I see Dmitri carrying him. The men file back into the helicopters.

Dmitri gets in with my boy.

“Noooooooo!” I wail.

I hoist myself up through the window and jump down onto the roof.

Adrenaline fuels my moves, but everything is a hazy blur.

The green gas must have got me too.

“Timothy! No… bring him back!” My lips are moving, but I don’t know what I’m saying. I lift my arm to do something, but it drops heavily to my side, and I drop to my knees, sliding down into the crevice of the rooftop as the helicopters takes off.

“No!... No.”

Darkness swallows me, taking me whole.

Dark like the deepest part of a nightmare where I just lost my child.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Vincent

I’m standing at the door again.

The door to the old house.

So, this must be a dream. No… it’s that nightmare, and I don’t want to go inside the house.

I know what’s waiting for me inside.

I know she’s waiting for me.

I can’t do it. I can’t keep doing this to myself. I can’t keep holding on to this memory of death, trapped in limbo like a spirit chained to a plane of torture.

My hands move to the door handle, and I turn it against my will. Against the fact that I don’t want to go inside this house ever again.

The door clicks as I push it open. Taking a step inside, I see it’s different. The men aren’t there on the ground with bullet holes in their bodies. There’s no one here. There are no bullet holes in the wall, and someone’s in the kitchen.

The radio is playing like it usually is when I get home. Sorcha likes that love song channel. That’s what it’s on now, and there’s humming. It sounds like her, but I dare not believe it could be.

I walk right up to the kitchen door and stop before I get there, worried that this is a new kind of crazy. Like it really happened this time, and I lost my mind.

I can hear, though, and something inside me wants to see.

I push the door open, and there she is making coffee.

She’s wearing the little shirt dress I got her for Christmas, and her hair looks like she’s just had it done at the salon. As always, she smiles when she sees me.

“Vinny, look at you. You look tired,” Sorcha says and comes up to me. She stands on the tips of her toes and gives me a kiss.

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