Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars 1)

But it only rang a thousand times, phone clutched in my hand as I dialed it again and again as I blazed down the streets.

Reckless.

But that’s what this life had been.

It was time for this to end.

I just had to get there.

Get there in time.

I careened around the last turn onto our street, pushing the bike so hard my knuckles felt like they were gonna bust open.

Muscles tight.

Lined with steel.

Terror screamed up my spine when I saw the red and blue lights strobing against the daylight. Cul-de-sac at the end filled with fire trucks and cop cars and ambulances.

This neighborhood that was supposed to be a safe place. An area where our daughter could run and play and grow.

Bile rushed, and my bike flew down the narrow street before I was ramming on the brakes, tires skidding. I didn’t even let it come to a full stop before I lay it down and jumped off.

Couldn’t even feel my feet as I raced for the house.

My spirit already inside.

Screaming and screaming.

No. Please. God. No.

A crowd had gathered. A circle of morbid curiosity that pressed and vied to get closer to the tragedy.

It was.

I could already feel it.

The evil that oozed from the walls. Shouted its wickedness. A claiming of the innocent.

It didn’t matter my soul already knew.

That it screamed and roared with agony.

I shoved through the people who formed a tight circle, held back by the yellow tape.

All of them gasping and crying and speculating.

A vicious buzz that screamed in my ears.

No, no, no, no.

“Maddie!” I screamed, raging, pushing through.

Jagged breaths and ice-cold blood.

Hands sought to hold me back, but I broke through the tape as I screamed, “Maddie!”

Officers grabbed me by both arms to keep me from getting to the house.

I roared, breaking free, and I surged through the door while they shouted at me to stop. Guns drawn.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

I had to get to them.

I flew inside, and I slid, slipping on their blood. My body gave, and I fell.

Falling.

This hell unending.

On my hands and knees, I crawled across the floor. Going nowhere with the pile of men who held me back.

But I fought and I fought, because I couldn’t stop, refused to give up.

I was weeping.

Guttural sounds ripping from my chest.

“Maddie. Haylee. Please.”

I needed to hold them.

One more time.

“Haylee. Oh God. My baby.”

“Get down, on your stomach.”

The shouts banged the walls, but the only thing I could hear was my spirit that wept.

Wails shattering the air.

Mine gutted.

Hers forever silenced.

My baby.

I was nothing.

Nothing.

Boneless.

Empty.

Nothing but rage.* * *Men hauled me away in shackles and chains. The interrogation felt like it went on forever as I sat there with my clothes stained with their affliction.

The curse I’d put on their lives.

As if I could do this.

But I had, hadn’t I?

The sins scored and seared and marred until I was nothing but rotted flesh.

Their goodness stripped away.

And the only thing left the vengeance that was to come.Thirty-SixLeif“Haylee!” The cry rocking from my mouth jolted me to sitting, heart crashing like a beast in my chest.

Worst part?

Worst was the way my arms burned with the vacant weight of my little girl.

The way my soul screamed with the truth of what I’d done.

The way it’d done for the last three years.

I dropped my head into my hands, squeezing it like it might stand the chance of blotting it out.

This unending pain.

Wondering how the fuck I’d gotten here.

Loving a girl that part of me had hated.

The way I’d been tormented with a nameless, shapeless face.

And now she was the only face I could see.

My guts twisted at the idea that bastard had ever even touched her. Last night, I’d had every intention of going for him. To just end it. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Mia. Mia.

My spirit groaned with her name. Body aching, already fucking addicted to her touch. Should have known I could never have them. That they were going to slip through my fingers like sand. Gone the second I’d hoped they were real.

My sins too great.

The evils I’d committed had accrued too much debt.

Now, I had to pay.

Rot in this motherfucking misery.

Hell.

That’s what I got for thinking I could possibly live in Eden.

And there was Karma, sitting on the shitty couch across the room, buffing her fingernails while she smirked.

Well-played, bitch, well-played.

My attention jerked to the nightstand of the rundown hotel where I was staying when my phone lit up with a call. Looked like I’d missed about fifteen thousand of them.

I grabbed it, squinting through the grainy light of the room.

Stomach clenched when I didn’t recognize the number.

Warily, I accepted it. “Hello?”

“Leif.”

Sound of her voice made me feel like I’d gotten knocked with a sledgehammer to the back of the head.

My mother.

“Don’t hang up,” she demanded in her hard way.

I roughed out bitter laughter. Was so not in the mood. “Give me one reason not to.”