Dying for Rain Synopsis
What could be worse than knowing the exact day the world is going to end?
Waking up to find out that it didn’t.
The post–April 23 world is a lawless, senseless, ruthless place, but it’s not loveless. At least, not for Rain and Wes.
But when the government begins holding daily televised executions as a demonstration of their power, that love is put to the ultimate test.
Will Rain sacrifice one life to save the others?
Or sacrifice the others to save the one?
May 5
Rain
It’s amazing how your whole life can change in an instant. How forces beyond your control can just reach out and rip entire chunks of your life away from you—the best chunks, the biggest chunks—without so much as a please or a thank you. And those forces always wait until your guard is down. They want to hear you exhale, to sigh in quiet contentment, before they strike.
I was in my tree house after sundown, exhaling a calming stream of smoke from one of my daddy’s cigarettes, when three shotgun blasts made me an orphan.
I was creeping down the highway on the back of Wes’s motorcycle, relieved that we’d survived April 23 and excited about what we might find outside of Franklin Springs, when an eighteen-wheeler exploded and almost killed my best friend, Quint.
I was wrapped in the safety of a dark, abandoned bookstore, sleeping peacefully after making love to Wes, when he ripped himself out of my life without so much as a goodbye.
And I’m in the safety of Wes’s arms now, in the living room of my childhood home, surrounded by a newly polished hardwood floor and freshly painted walls, when I feel myself exhale again.
Watch my fear flutter to the floor like a silk robe.
Smile as hope and peace and gratitude tickle my flushed skin and whisper promises in my ear.
Wes wraps my thighs around his waist and kisses that smile away—feverishly, impatiently. As if he has more love to give me than time.
I sigh into his mouth, and three knocks on the door immediately signal my mistake. I let my guard down again, and now, the forces have come to take the only good thing I have left.
My eyes slam open, and Wes grabs my face.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
“What’s gonna be okay? What’s happening, Wes?”
Bang, bang, bang!
“Georgia State PD. Open up!”
I shriek and cover my mouth with my hands. My stupid, sighing mouth.
“We have the premises surrounded! Open up!”
“Oh my God!” I search Wes’s face for answers, search the room for a place to hide.
“They’re not here for you.” He shushes me, cupping my cheek in his warm, rough hand. “You did nothing wrong, okay? Just promise me you’ll stay here. You’re safe here.”
“What’s happening, Wes?” My voice goes shrill as the banging gets louder.
“It’s open!” Wes yells, holding my stare as the door behind me—the brand-new country-blue door that he installed while he was away—flies open.
“That’s him,” a voice I’ve known—a voice I’ve trusted—my entire life snarls from the doorway. “That’s the man who procured the antibiotics.”
I spin around as my mouth falls open, shock and betrayal slicing me from back to front as I turn. “Mrs. Renshaw! What are you doing?”
I block Wes with my body as my eyes dart from Carter’s mom to the massive police officer standing next to her. Rage and hurt and a desperate kind of fear surge through me, making my movements jerky and forcing words out of my mouth.
“It was me!” I scream. “Take me! I gave Quint the antibiotics! Not Wes!”
The cop flashes Mrs. Renshaw a questioning look as Wes calmly walks around my outstretched arms and kneels before me in the middle of my living room. My fingers weave through his hair, pulling it away from his face as tears blur my vision.
“No …” I whisper.
“It was me. I saved Quinton Jones’s life,” Wes announces without taking his eyes off me. “And even if it wasn’t, you can’t execute her …”
I shake my head down at him, pleading with him to do something.
And he does. He presses a single kiss to my belly and smiles up at me, a mixture of pride and heartbreak carved into his beautiful features.
“She’s pregnant.”
Those words bounce off my brain, heard but rejected, as the cop yanks Wes off the ground by his arm.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you—”
“No!” I scream, lunging for Wes. I grab his blue Hawaiian shirt with both hands as the meathead standing behind him clasps a pair of metal handcuffs around his innocent wrists.
He might as well be tightening a noose around his neck.
“Stop it! You’re killing him!” I shout.
“You will be given an audience with the governor within seventy-two hours—at which point, you may defend yourself against the charges being brought against you.”
I glance up at Wes’s face, expecting to find panic mirroring my own, but for once, his pale mossy eyes aren’t analyzing or angry or guarded or cold. They’re just sad.
Sad and so, so sorry.
“Eyewitness testimony and evidence collected at the scene of the crime will be taken into consideration,” the officer drones on, ignoring me as he continues his speech, but Mrs. Renshaw gives me her full attention.
“Rainbow, let go!” she hisses, taking a step toward me. “This man is a danger to everyone in the community. One day, you’ll see—”
“You’re killing him!” I scream again, this time directing my rage at the woman standing next to the officer. I’ve never wanted to hit anyone so badly in my life, but my hands won’t let go of Wes.
I can’t let go of Wes.
Instead, I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bury my face in his chest, and scream directly into the thick flesh and thin cotton separating me from his heart.
How many beats does it have left?
How many would it have had if he’d never met me?
Wes presses his lips to the top of my head as my lungs finally run out of air, and it breaks me all the way.
Because I know this kiss. I know all of his kisses.
Wes is trying to comfort me.
But who’s going to comfort him?
“Ramirez? You need backup?” a gruff voice calls from my open doorway.
“Yeah. Looks like we got a stage five clinger.”
“Ma’am,” the second officer snaps, “I’m gonna need you to let go of the suspect and step aside.”
I hear the order, but I don’t look up or even acknowledge it. It doesn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t let go of Wesson Patrick Parker if I tried.
And I’ve been trying for weeks.
“Ma’am, this is your final warning. I will not ask you again. Let go of the suspect and put your hands on your head.”
“Rainbow! Let go!” Mrs. Renshaw yells.
“Let go, baby,” Wes whispers into my hair. “I love you so fucking much. Just do what they say, okay?”
But I can’t. His shirt is so soft. His chest, so warm. His heart, so steady and strong where it pounds against my cheek. I clutch his shoulders tighter and stifle a sob as I press up onto my toes and kiss his worried mouth. Wes’s bottom lip pulls free from his teeth just before it collides with mine. Then, he stills, holding the moment along with his breath.