“Willa! W-I-L-L-A!” I choke out, grabbing his shoulder, my desperate pleas being answered with glossy eyes and a firm shake of his head.
No, no, no, no.
Hazy confusion and grief grips me in a chokehold as my mind tries to shut down, protect me from what he’s trying to tell me. Sharp stabbing rips open my chest as sickness rushes up my throat.
“I’m so fucking sorry, man,” Jameson calls out to me over the sounds of hoses dousing the house—the house my Willa’s inside.
No. No. This can’t be real. I died at that meet tonight, shit went bad, and someone put a bullet in me.
I shove past Jameson, racing in what feels like slow motion toward the ash and rubble that was once walls. There’s nothing left. Everything is gone. She’s gone.
My legs fail me, and I fall to the gravel. Intense panic sweeps through me. It’s not real. It’s not real. Fear and confusion riot inside my head as the scent of my kingdom falling singes my nostrils. “Arghhh!” I pound my fists into the ground until my knuckles split and bones crunch. This isn’t real. Arms come around me. “Gabe, come on. You don’t need to be here.”
Where else would I be? My kid’s images on the screen at the doctor’s send sheer agony slicing into me as my world-shatters to dust. Tension and pain coil every muscle in my body, solidifying the blood in my veins.
I’m dying. I don’t want to live.
“It should have been me too. I should have been here!” This isn’t real. Wake up. Wake the fuck up.
“They’re saying it was a gas leak. You would have died too.”
“I am dying! I’m dying!” I roar, my throat raw. Willa’s image plays on repeat in my mind, her small rounding stomach with our kid inside. Fuck. My lungs feel like they’re melting. Darkness creeps in from the corners of my eyes, making my head spin. No. No. No. This can’t be real. No, this isn’t happening.
I need to get up. Get away from here. Stumbling to my feet, I tug from Jameson’s hold and walk on unsteady legs back to my bike, climbing on.
“Gabe, don’t fucking do this.”
I can’t be here when they bring her out. What’s left of her. I’m going to be sick. Fuck, my soul is being ripped through my skin. I gun it, tires screaming, kicking up gravel. Tears blur my vision. I contemplate plowing headfirst into a tree. She’s going to call and laugh saying she was cooking and things got out of hand and she ran outside to escape the smoke. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
I find myself pulling in at the first bar I come across, pain vibrating inside my head, waiting to explode. Sweat beads my forehead as scenarios and images dance through my skull like a movie reel. “Whiskey straight—leave the bottle,” I bark to the bartender, resting my hands on the bar, trying to suck oxygen into my lungs. This isn’t fucking real. She’s going to call and ask where I am. I’ll drive home, and it won’t be ash. She’ll be waiting for me and…
“Another round over here,” some dickhead bellows. Suited and booted and already drunk surrounded by other entitled assholes who think they should be waited on. I chase the first shot of whiskey and will the glass to re-fill itself. The intoxicated asshole is getting louder, pushing and shoving people into tables, smashing glasses.
“Come on, guys. It’s time that you leave,” a bartender calls over to them from her position behind the bar.
“I’ll be taking your fine ass with us. You ever been gangbanged?” he calls back. Am I in hell? I didn’t leave Willa, I went up in flames with her.
“Course she has. Look at her, bet she’s a pro.”
“That’s enough. You guys need to leave,” the male bartender speaks up for his colleague, gaining an array of laughs and insults.
“Oh, come on. Be a team player,” the leader of the fucking entitled pricks croons. I hate men like them, born with daddy’s checkbook in their diapers. They think it makes them untouchable, above everything, even human decency. Am I even here? I’ve left my body—I’m floating above, my psyche splintering.
“Let’s just lock the door and have her right here.” A hand lands on my shoulder. “You game?”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I growl.
“Wow. Chill, dude. Who died and made you boss?” He mocks with a smirk, holding his hands up.
I snap my arm out and grab him by the scruff of the neck before he can move away. Clasping the whiskey bottle in my other hand, I swing hard, smashing it on the bar, then jab the sharp, jagged end into his neck. Shocked blue eyes enlarge as silence falls through the room. Gargling sounds shuts the cunt up. I add some pressure and twist, slicing through the artery. “You,” I growl. “You fucking died.” I release him, his body collapsing, hitting a bar stool on the way down.