Wind screams through the expanse, into the valley before retracing its steps and coming back around. It’s cloudy up here, speckles of rain catching my face.
We’re pretty much in the clouds. All I can see is the valley. The trees disappear into a lower layer of clouds, prohibiting me from seeing any further down.
The city is miles away, Joy down there too, catching up on missed time with the people she loves.
She has friends. I never really had those. The second everyone realizes the money has disappeared, they’ll be walking out of my life. My status was all anyone ever gave a fuck about… excepther.
I revel in my next few breaths, knowing any one of them could be my last.
I stare into the horizon, my hands raised in the air. The vultures can tear my body to shreds, but they’ll never take away the love I feel for Joy, the unborn child and my son.
My death will set both of them free.
I hear the metal clinking sound of Igor releasing his hold on the gun.
Frowning, I turn over my shoulder and watch him lower it slowly to his side.
Clarity breaks through on his face, pushing away the anger.
I smooth my tongue over my teeth, eying Igor and the dozen men he still has lined up, ready to kill.
“Set them free,” I tell him, “but make sure you threaten them with silence first. Never look back on this life again, you understand me? If you want answers, you find me. You don’t spill blood to search for them.”
Igor nods, taking a step forward back to his assassins.
“Oh, and Igor?” I shout.
He spins around.
“If you want your apartment back, give me my money. All of it.” I look at him. “Since you and Siguard were working together, you should have access.”
“Actually, I don’t.” Igor extends his gun at the assassins. “But I’ll have no problem getting it.”
28
JOY
10 months later…
“Mommy’s home,”I call, flying into my Mom’s place.
“Shhh,” hushes Mom, rocking Hope to sleep on the couch. “I just put her to sleep. It took some vigorous arm rocking, but we finally got there in the end.”
My chest fills with love as I stare down at Mom and Hope cuddled up on the couch.
Calling my daughter Hope felt like the right thing to do, since she’s been the light in the past ten months of darkness.
She has the same steel blue eyes as her father... who I have thought about every single day without fail for the last ten months.
It helped to lay my hand on my stomach as a reminder of why I walked away, but the pain was always still there.
I was high on gas and air in the delivery room, wishing Valerian was by my side, and we were experiencing our daughter’s first breaths together.
In the moments after giving birth, I shut my eyes and saw his face. I blamed the gas and air for dreaming about him that night… and all nights to follow, picturing his face, imagining his reaction.
My imagination was all I had.
I still see his face, the shadows curling around him as we stand together in the dark lobby, soaking in each other’s presence one last time.