Too bad everything in this life couldn’t be washed away with the rain. Maybe then the outcome of my destiny would have been different.
Just a little farther and I reach the cliff’s end above the ocean. The car flies from it, sailing down into the ocean as the sky booms with thunder.
And when it finally happens, my laughter is the one echoing inside as the tears stream down my cheeks, because it’s finally over.
With my death, I free myself and everyone else from this nightmare once and for all.
Hoping that, instead of hell, I’ll go to the land where sinners atone.
The car plunges into the water, floating for a second, but sinks quickly due to the open window through which water fills the car. I gulp air into my lungs, thinking about my daughter and Zach and how sorry I am for leaving them like this.
But it’s better for Emmaline that I die, because, for her, Zachary is her dad and I’m just a stranger.
No one misses strangers, right?
If I wasn’t in the water, tears would be streaming down my cheeks along with the sobs shaking my body.
I swing my head to the side, though, when something grabs my hand. I open my eyes wide to see Zachary, who pulls me from the open window. I struggle in his hold, but he is relentless.
My hip bangs painfully on the car as he manages to get me out and then pushes me toward the surface. I want to shout in frustration at him. Why did he have to come and save me? Doesn’t he understand it won’t end until one of us and Lydia are dead?
The thoughts of her falling from the cliff soon, though, make me swim up, that and how Zachary probably can’t hold his breath for much longer.
Zach and I both gulp for breath when we reach the top, and then he barks at me, “Swim to the fucking shore!” We swim for a few minutes before I end up crawling onto the sand, coughing loudly, spitting out water, but Zachary doesn’t give me a long reprieve.
He flips me to my back and checks on me, his hand trembling all over my form. “Are you all right?” The water drips from his hair and on me, and I’m not sure where I find the strength, probably from the adrenaline flooding my blood, but I push him away and shout, “Why did you do that?”
“Why? I should have let you die?”
“What other choice was there?” I scream at him, not caring how each word hurts my throat as it burns. I sit up on the sand, trembling all over. “She will never stop!”
“Then sacrifice me!” he fires right back, and I open my mouth to argue when I blink at the beach, noticing that the cliff wasn’t very high and no car followed me. Should we have felt it back in the water or heard it by now?
Only then do I spot a small road leading from the cliff to this beach and shake my head in denial, saying, “Lydia.”
“Is right here.” Her voice sounds from behind me, and Zachary goes stone-cold. His jaw clenches while he fists his hands, and with dread, I turn around, sitting up on my knees to face Lydia holding a gun pointed at me. “I knew he would save you. Ask me how.” Zach takes a step toward her, but she wiggles the gun in her hand. “Nah-ah, brother dearest. Not unless you want me to shoot her.”
“How?” I do as she says, too afraid she might pull the trigger anyway, too caught up in her memories.
“Abusers always seek their victims, nothing on this earth is powerful enough to keep them away. Just like my mother, you chose him.”
“Like she chose your dad?”
“Daddy was a bad man. But he taught me how to recognize his kind and rid the world of them.” Some serial killers indeed do hunt those who did the same deeds as their abuser, but Lydia has done nothing to help the world get rid of them.
Not that I can say any of this in the current situation.
“After Zach married and called her sweetheart all the fucking time, I couldn’t stand it. So one day, I burned my hands. I remembered how Daddy said they were not muscled enough. That’s when I met you, the kindest person I’d ever seen. You sat with me and talked to me, because one of the doctors suspected self-harm, even though I claimed I just touched the hot pan. I didn’t expect the shrink to be so good.” My brows furrow at this, because I never remembered seeing her before she came to get me released from prison. If it happened before the accident, shouldn’t I at least have recognized her? “I wore a medical mask and sunglasses. I couldn’t have people speculating about a King harming herself. Wouldn’t fit the image.” She flips her hair back when the blast of the wind covers her face. “I thought you would understand me, Phoenix. Sebastian didn’t deserve you.” She briefly glances at Zach. “That’s when Angelica became mean to me, so I decided to end it all.” She chuckles, although it lacks any humor. “I thought I would free us all from abusers. And what did I get in return? Nothing! You fell for Zachary!” She screams the last part, pointing the gun at me. “And I’m so tired of opening up everyone’s eyes to their deeds.” Her eyes water. “Why does no one ever listen to me?” She presses her hand against her chest, hitting herself with a fist. “To my pain and my heartache? Everyone ignores it. I deserved better than this!”
“You did,” Zachary says, sliding a little closer while Lydia frowns, focusing her stare on him. “What happened to you was bad. But Phoenix never betrayed you. Your anger should be directed at me.”
“She wanted to marry you. And she protected you!” she shouts. “I hate you, Zachary. Because of you, Daddy kidnapped me all those years ago. It should have been you who lived all those nightmares.” Tears fall rapidly down her face. “It should have been you who drove that car. And you even took Phoenix from me!” She points the gun at me again. “So, I’m going to take back what you stole.”
Everything happens as if in slow motion.
Lydia fires at me, but Zachary’s body blocks me from the gun. Several shots echo in the night, one by one, and then I see a man coming from the shadows toward Lydia, grabbing her from the back and disarming her, pressing her on the sand while she shouts.
I jump up from my position, running around Zachary to examine how much damage she’s done, only for a scream to tear out of my throat when I see him.
No.
No, no, no.
Epilogue
“We all wish for happy endings in this life.
Some happy endings have bittersweet feelings to them though.
Usually when life doesn’t go as you’ve planned…
And you’ve faced a few losses on the way.
The only thing keeping a person going during this difficult time is love…
Love that has the power to make you hold on and withstand anything.
Even the most unbearable and heartbreaking pain.”
Phoenix
New York, New York
15 years later
Phoenix
“You guys suck,” Emmaline exclaims, adjusting her graduation cap on her head and flipping her hair so the dark locks fall freely down her back and glisten in the sunlight streaming from above on this beautiful spring day.
Ian and Wyatt—identical twins with black hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, almost like the clearest of emeralds found in the mountains—share a look and shrug, not caring much about my daughter’s displeasure. “You have to make up your mind, Em,” Ian says, and her jaw drops open as she places one hand on her hip and wiggles the other at their clothes.