Much less if she couldn’t get her emotions under control.
The calmer she was, the slower she would use up the precious supply of oxygen that she had left.
“Come on, Grace, calm down, stop crying,” she begged herself through the tears that refused to stop falling. “For Matthew.”
If he was alive, she couldn’t let him spend the rest of his life carrying around the guilt of her death.
He would, she knew that.
Just as she carried the guilt of the women whose lives Jason had forced her to take, he carried the guilt of the death of his stepfather and the shame his mother and sister had heaped upon him. He’d carry her death too, and she was so afraid that the added burden would be enough to squash the light inside him.
That light had led her out of the darkness. It had given her hope and a promise of a future where the ties to her dark past had only minimal hold on her life.
There was no way she could be responsible for blowing that light out.
So, she had to calm down, had to at least give Matthew and her family the best chance possible of finding her. That was the only way she might find peace in whatever lay beyond this earth.
There had been many times when she had been Jason's prisoner that she had prayed for just one more minute with her family. A chance to hug them one last time, tell them how much she loved them, how lucky she felt to have been born into a family—both blood and by choice—that loved each other so much.
She had gotten an answer to that prayer.
A chance to spend time with her family and so very much more.
The last few days had been both awful and beautiful. She had battled the desire to give in to the pain and fear and let it consume her, and begun to forge a new path, one where she could make a difference in the world and one where she had found true companionship.
If this was the end, then she had to focus on the gifts she’d been given and not everything Jason had stolen from her. While she could never be grateful to Jason for what he’d done, even if it had made her stronger, shown her her ability to survive, it had at least set her on a path to find Matthew.
When the oxygen ran out and death finally got its claws in her, it would be Matthew’s smiling face she would cling to as she stepped over the divide to what lay beyond.
* * * * *
6:26 P.M.
Jason put the last shovel full of dirt into the hole.
There.
It was done.
He patted the dirt down with the back of the shovel and then looked around. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Maybe he should throw some of the grass seed from the shed over the top of the soil, or perhaps he should plant something special like roses. A memorial of sorts.
When he’d taken Grace, he’d assumed that he would pick things back up right from where they had left off. The house was set up just like the one before and he’d intended to punish Grace for leaving him just like his sister had, and then he was going to let things calm down before he took another woman.
Things had changed when Grace had offered him her help.
How long had it been since someone noticed him enough to offer him anything?
His sister hadn't loved him enough to fight through what had happened to her and live. His mother hadn't loved him enough to remember that she still had a child alive, and a child who needed her. His father hadn't loved him enough to fight his way through the fog of grief and stop his wife’s alcohol fueled abuse.
Things had gotten so bad at home that he had withdrawn at school and the friends he’d had before faded from his life. Since he was quiet and didn't cause disruptions in class, teachers basically ignored him. After graduating high school, he’d taken over his father’s construction company, managing to repair the damage his father’s apathy had caused the business. He was successful, he still took care of his parents despite their abandonment. He had volunteered at the rape crisis line because he didn't want another woman to feel she had no options but to end her own life, destroying the family members she left behind.
But it wasn’t enough.
He’d failed Isabel, and he hadn't been enough to save his parents, but he had made a difference.
What he’d done for Grace proved that.
And now it was time to move on.