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“One feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.”
Luckily for me, Kassara is well-versed in, and completely immune, to my cynicism and terrible personality.
That’s the burden of being a writer, truly. We spend so much time in our heads, we rarely experience the world outside of it. Not in the same way other people do.
I square my shoulders toward the front door, aware I’m likely being watched right now from somewhere inside the house. Then again, maybe not. Not everyone is as bored and paranoid as I am.
My husband and I moved here right after our son was born.
Like a proper addict, my entire body is now buzzing with adrenaline, the drink in my hand the only thing I can focus on. I haven’t allowed myself a drink all day, and every nerve in my body is screaming in revolt. Demanding a sip, like a petulant toddler. I lift the cocktail to my lips and take a small drink. In an instant, everything in me goes electric. My brain seems to whir to life. The room around me is brighter.
“It’s fun for me to plot through the eyes of a reader and try to figure out what you’ll be guessing, so I can lead you off course and down the wrong path.”
Once you’ve lost the two people who matter most to you in the world, no other loss or pain can compare.
“If you don’t want this stuff to happen, why do you write about it?” he demands, staring at me with wild eyes. “It’s just fiction. It’s made up. It’s just supposed to be a story.” “It’s so much more than that, Mari. We both know it. There’s beauty in it. In pain. In suffering. In fear.” He inches closer, like something out of a horror movie. In the book, the killer plucks out his victim’s two front teeth. “You saw that. You got it, more than anyone else. You understand how beautiful pain can be.”
“Your son, Liam… Ma’am, I’m so sorry…” Sobs tore through my chest as I reached hysteria. He’s gone. He’s gone. “He’s gone, isn’t he? Please tell me he’s not gone.” “Ma’am… Liam was the one shooting.”
After Liam’s death, Declan left me. He couldn’t take the guilt of what he’d done when faced with an impossible decision. Couldn’t look me in the eye when he knew he’d done his duty, made the hardest decision of his life when a killer wouldn’t stand down, and in the process, took our only son away from me.
Things aren’t fixed between us—they never will be. Not because I don’t forgive him, but because the pain between us is a deeper rift than could ever be mended. There’s too much pain and loss in the space that separates us.
