Page 98 of Reaper’s Wrath

I’m not sure why. I think I’m okay. The side airbag did its job, and the crash wasn’t terrible. Not like…

I turn to check on Elio and feel the world tilt on its axis.

Blood.

It’s dripping from his head down his cheek and onto his shirt below. Deep crimson and thick, the same as when Ario died.

The phantom sounds of sirens blare in my head. Voices of paramedics—their urgent desperation as they try to get my brother and me out of the gnarled metal remnants of our car.

I smell the metal and leaking fluids.

I taste the blood on my tongue from twenty years ago, thrust back to one of the darkest moments of my life, forced to relive it.

When I look at Elio, I see my brother.

Lifeless.

Broken.

Elio doesn’t move.

His eyes are closed, and I’m certain it’s happened again.

I’m losing him.

Ario.

Elio.

The baby.

My hand clutches my stomach as an emotional wave of devastation crashes over me worse than any physical wound could ever cause.

My baby. The only thing I had left of Elio after his disappearance. Blood soaked my pants, pooling in the seat below me.

So much blood.

Agony claws its way up my throat and bursts to life in a heart-wrenching wail that poisons the air.

I’ve lost them.

All of them.

All because of me.

Elio disappeared when I didn’t show up to meet him.

Ario was killed bringing me back from the doctor visit that confirmed I was pregnant. A favor to me. He was the only one I told. I was too scared to tell Daddy or anyone else. Ario was there for me. Reassuring. The perfect big brother.

Gone because of me.

That unexpected life I was equally thrilled and terrified about, cut short in the accident.

To save me, they took away my future. My ability to have children.

My past. My future. Everything gone in a matter of months.

The devastation is crushing—the memories every bit as fresh as though they happened moments ago. I feel it all. See it all. The secret meetings. The longing glances. A passionate devotion unique to a first love. A love I never got over because the loss would have been too crippling to endure. Instead, my mind protected itself by boxing up every scrap of memory related to Elio Farina and buried it deep where it couldn’t harm me.