Burn (Virtues & Lies 1)

I look at the photo on my phone again, and this time it’s blurry too, because all I can think of are the seven excruciating hours I had to watch her fight for her next second on this earth. The punchy whooshing of the machines keeping her alive. All the tubes and cables.

Seven fucking hours.

My daughter didn’t get to meet her mother. She didn’t get to be held by the one person who loved her beyond her own life.

God, that makes me so angry. I can’t even breathe with how it tears me up from the inside out. All this anger, all the regret.

I thread Arabella’s rings through the rope like string I pulled off one of the boxes the builders have lying around. I tie it loosely around my neck because I’m not letting her go.

Arabella is mine.

She has my name. She has my heart.

I’ll scorch this earth if I have to, to bring her back to me. Right as I tear all the fuckers that took our daughter from us limb from limb.

I don’t care what it takes, but I’ll avenge them both. A drop of blood at a time, until the blood on my hands matches theirs.

I take one last look at my daughter, my heart breaking for the millionth time because I didn’t realise how much I loved her until it was too late. Until she came into this world too soon, and then left far too early. I pocket the device and grab my key from the floor. I tuck my wife’s rings, the promises she made into my shirt, right next to my heart and I go.

Leo swore he’d be ready when I was. I’m ready.