I was living in a nightmare. Another fucking one. Layla had died three times the night she’d given birth. I had my heart yanked out several times that night. Not to mention the time when I found her hanging off a cliff by her fingertips in the early morning hours in the Catskills.
Doc started chest compressions again. “Steven, get your son and Jordyn out of here and close the door, please.” His voice sounded as panicked as I felt.
My dad grabbed Jordyn. “Tripp, help Sam.”
I jerked my arm away. “I’m staying.”
Jordyn was crying as she went willingly with my father.
I wasn’t sure I was breathing.
“Sam.” Tripp’s voice was soft. “You need air.”
I needed a fucking miracle.
Tripp got in my face. “Look at me, Sam.”
My best bud had been there for me the night Layla had given birth. He’d talked me down off a ledge several times. But I didn’t think he could right now.
A buzzing started in my ears. Nausea churned violently inside me.
He was right. I did need air.
I hurried out as Doc and Wendy dropped words like“Clear”before the sound of the defibrillator wound up, making a high-pitched noise that stung my heart, making it feel like I’d walked into a hornet’s nest. I pushed through the double doors, desperate to rid the tang of blood from my system, to expel the rage, the heartache, and the shock. I clenched my fists, jabbing my nails into my palms until I could feel blood pooling in my hands.
The dead prison guard lay on the floor in the hallway, his heart several feet away. My breath quickened as my mind went haywire at the thought that Layla might not cheat death this time around.
I snatched up the stretcher, and with a bestial roar, I hurled it like a javelin down the hall—an explosion of violence that was the only thing that could express the sorrow crushing my soul into a million tiny pieces. Then I sprinted to the exit, needing to run, pray, and pray some fucking more.
She couldn’t die. How would I tell our children their mother was dead? How could I live without her?
I bent over the second I was out of the building and inhaled the humid August air. As my lungs expanded, my body pulsed in pain. Dragging a hand through my hair, I headed down to the water’s edge, breathing in the salt air. I couldn’t keep going through this emotional, heart-stabbing, gut-clawing pain over and over again. Something had to give.
I ran down a jogging path along the edge of the parking lot. Boats sat on the water in the far distance, looking like tiny specks on a map. We didn’t allow civilians to come close to the naval base. We had patrol boats during the height of the spring and summer seasons to ward off anyone who didn’t belong past a certain point on both sides of Mount Hope Bay.
I kept running on the path, following it around and along the water’s edge. I sprinted, cried, and gasped for air. But I couldn’t stop, afraid that if I did, my world would come to an end. I thought of my kids and sobbed harder than I ever had in my life. I couldn’t picture Layla gone. I couldn’t fathom a moment without hearing her laugh, seeing her eyes light up when I walked into a room or when she gazed at our children. It shredded me to think that she would never snuggle up to me, wake up next to me, or say those four words that always melted me into a puddle of water—“I love you, vampire.”
Sweat poured out of me, mixing with my salty tears, and by the time I’d circled the one-mile path and was coming around toward the infirmary, Tripp was on the sidewalk at the edge of the building.
He glanced toward the front entrance where the lobby was and then in my direction.
The closer I got to him, the harder my pulse pounded in my ears.
He was as white as fallen snow, and I knew. I knew he had bad news. I couldn’t handle hearing whatever he had to say. Then again, he didn’t have to open his mouth at all.
I turned around and walked in the opposite direction.
“Sam.” The way Tripp said my name sent a sharp jolt of pain to my chest.
I raised a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I can’t, man.”
He jogged up to me. “Can I at least walk with you?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I just kept my legs moving. The minute I stopped would be the minute he would have to pluck my body off the ground with a forklift.
An excruciating silence followed us until we reached the end of the road.
I made the mistake of looking at him, because when I saw the tears in his eyes, reality hit me like a jet falling out of the sky. Tripp never shed a tear. Not one in my presence.
