When she’d become too tired from all the treatments, she stopped playing. That’s when life slowly drained from her and the light in her eyes faded. That’s when I knew she wasn’t going to fight the cancer anymore.

The loud clang of Brin’s cell phone hitting the counter again jerked me from my thoughts, and I pushed them back to the far corners of my mind.

“Bugger. Yolanda can’t play tonight either. And now I have to find someone to take Tommy’s place Friday nights.” Brin was flustered, and she was never flustered. It was obvious she had some sort of anxiety about playing.

Brin placed two glasses of water with lemon on my tray. “For Callum’s guys.” She nodded at the booth in the far corner of the bar.

I picked up the tray and turned away, then paused. My father no longer controlled what I did or who I’d become. He didn’t have that power over me anymore.

I swung back around. “I’ve been playing guitar since I was ten, and I write my own songs.”

Brin’s head snapped up. “No shit. Are you any good?”

My mom used to say I was a natural and music was in my soul. That didn’t mean I could get up on stage and play in front of people and they’d like it. But I wanted Jackson to grow up believing in himself. To do whatever his heart told him to.

And that meant I did too. “Yes. I’m good,” I replied.

She smirked. “Next Friday. If you’re any good, you can take Tommy’s spot.”

Before I had a chance to respond, she moved off down the bar.

Vic

“Don’t… don’t leave me.” His voice crackled as he choked back sobs. Sobs contaminated with fear and desperation.

“I’m not leaving you,” I ground out. I’d never leave him. “I’ll get you out.”

His fingers were so small and fragile, like broken toothpicks gripping the rusted bars above his head.

I heaved on the bars again, the metal cutting into my already bleeding hands. I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. Not the cold, either. Or the agonizing cramps in every single muscle in my body.

Again and again, I pulled on the grate as the constant ping of rain pounding the pavement above me kept growing stronger. Harder. Relentless.

Stop. Just fuckin’ stop. It had to stop.

Everything would be okay if it just stopped.

“I don’t want to die,” he cried, the tears staining his dirty cheeks.

My bloody fingers slipped from the bars, and I fell back on my ass. I heard a gurgle and scrambled on my hands and knees to the grate, peering into the darkness.

No. No. Please. Don’t. I need to see him. Let me see him.

I can save him this time. I’m stronger now. I can do it.

I lay on my side and reached through the bars into the rising water. My muscles screamed in agony as I fished around for him.

My fingertips touched something, and I closed my fist around it and yanked.

His head popped above the surface.

No. It wasn’t his head. It wasn’t him.

It was her.

I darted upright in bed, sweat sliding down my skin and my body trembling as I sucked in suffocating breaths.

Jesus. It had felt so real. His eyes. His voice. The murky surface dragging him under.

Tags: Nashoda Rose Underground Horsemen Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net