Page 125 of Contempt

Every single morning.

All the nights of their lives.

Life owed him that—they wouldn’t get it.

Yeah, he wasn’t ready for this shit. He was never more aware of that fact than right now, and it fucked him straight up.

Instead of letting go of the wires like he should, because if he didn’t, there was a good chance the idiot watching the cameras would just pull the kill switch anyway, he was stuck in his head going over every single moment of his life that he could.

People liked to say when death came quickly, a person’s life would flash behind their eyes. This death for Renzo wasn’t fast—it was painfully slow.

His memories came in the same way.

Like a trickle.

One drop at a time.

It hurt more this way, he figured.

Way more.

Renzo let the wires go—he didn’t want to hurt anymore. He’d planned a just in case for when he let go of those wires, but he didn’t think it was going to work, but fuck him if he wasn’t going to at least try.

Spinning around fast after he let go of the wires, he ran right into the car that had lowered on the lift after John punched the metal control box earlier. Pain bloomed in his shoulder from the impact, but he didn’t even feel it.

The adrenaline was rushing through his veins, and all he could think was move, run, go. He could hear the timer on the bomb beeping behind him. He was hyperaware of that sound, and it also seemed like it was chasing him.

Beep, beep, beep.

It felt like it was echoing in the quiet warehouse. The same way it reverberated in his mind, and heart. His body became the echo chamber for those beeps and the seconds that they represented with each new beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Six seconds.

Four to go.

Renzo dropped to his knees, and squeezed in beneath the car where it was covering the cement hole beneath the lift. He fell in hard. Once he got through that space, he dropped ten feet down, and his back hit the bottom with a crack.

If he broke something, he didn’t know.

It felt like it.

Probably his fucking skull.

Renzo stared up at the bottom of the car covering the hole for an entire second. The fall had taken his breath away, and he needed just a moment to catch it and realize how far he had fallen before he hit the ground.

It was long enough to hear the bomb beep one more time before he rolled over, tucked his body as close to the cement wall as he could, and covered his head with his arms. He still didn’t think this was going to work, but he also still needed to try. It wouldn’t be him if he didn’t go out of this world giving it all he fucking had, right?

Beep.

He’d done what he could.

Beep.

It was all on God now.

Beep.