Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Is that what it is? Is it the words forgive me? Is that why I belonged to Santos from the first moment he spoke them to me? Because my mother had said the same two words to me. They were the last thing she said before she killed herself.
I remember crying, reaching out for her, because even at five I knew what she was going to do. I knew. But she didn’t look back after that. Once the door closed, it was only seconds before it was over.
I didn’t see her fall. I didn’t hear her body hit the ground. If she screamed, it was swallowed up by the ocean waves constantly crashing against the rocks. But I knew when she was gone. A stillness settled over the place like nothing I’d ever felt before. The stillness of death. The finality of it.
When I reach the top of the stairs, I drop to a seat, unable to go on. It’s dark. The only light is from a lamp that burns at the window. My stomach churns, my head throbs, and I swear I can taste his blood. Setting the letter opener down on the ground beside me, I rub my face. Salty tears burn my eyes, leaving streaks along my cheeks. It takes me a full minute before I look up, look around. I listen for that stillness. That same silence. I press the heels of my hands into my face to stop the tears, but they just keep coming. I press them to the space over my heart to stop the pain but that, too, just keeps hurting.
What happens now? What happens now that Santos is gone?
Just then, lighting breaks overhead, illuminating a shadow that moves along the window. I let out a scream and scramble to my feet, tripping backward against the wall. I don’t know what I’m expecting. Who I’m expecting. My mother’s ghost? Santos’s?
Sirens wail in the distance. I shake my head to clear it. There’s no one here. It’s just me. My heart thuds against my chest as I look around. What am I doing here? There’s only one thing to be done, isn’t there?
I shift my gaze to the door that leads to the catwalk. I remember my father talking about the lock they’d installed after my mother’s death. Too late, he’d said. She’d have found another way, I think.
Confused, I go to it, turn the handle to push it open. The sound it makes is one I’d forgotten, but now that I hear it again, it reminds me of that night fifteen years ago, the night my mother jumped to her death. It’s like fate when I step out onto the wooden planks laid over the damaged catwalk and stand in the fury of the storm.
Are you so unaccustomed to being wanted?
He’d wanted me.
And now he’s gone. I made sure of that.
A sob breaks from my chest, and I take a step toward the railing, ignoring the yellow tape warning of danger.
I can almost see my mother as she disappeared that night, her hair a dark river down her back. My hands shake as I reach for the rail. I grip it and make myself look down. Rain slashes my face, my clothes, soaking me through as the sea crashes against the cliffs, the water so high the rocks are almost invisible.
Is this where she went over? I don’t know. I close my eyes, listen to the chaos around me, and wonder what I’m doing here. Am I going to jump, too? Is that why I came?
“Stop!”
I gasp, startled, spinning around, the railing wobbly behind me. The beacon pans over the sea and between that and the lamp at the window, I can make out the face of the man who must have been the shadow I saw. Except that it doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong here. I bring my trembling hands before me holding the letter opener between myself and the hulking man with the scar that circles his neck. The cool, steel eyes trap me as they take in the state of me.
Thiago Avery’s eyes.
He holds his hands out, palms up, and looks me over. I look down at myself, too, to see what he sees. The bloody mess of me. I wonder if he hears the low keening coming from inside my chest over the fury of the storm.
“What did you do?” he asks, taking a step toward me.
I walk backwards away from him, away from the door that leads back into the lighthouse.
He follows me, but he’s cautious. “Stop. It’s not safe.”
The wind seems to grow angrier as I look over my shoulder and down at the sea below.
“You can’t be here, Madelena,” he says.
When I look back at him, he’s closer. “Get away from me!” I yell, brandishing the letter opener between us.