He breathed shakly. “The propleted for–they are not my father in his company well, they do not just go away. I midto leave, and they mistakably delivered a message. Do you remember that rident? The one I told you wo a drunk driver? was not it was them it was a warning to me.
–
Jennifer’s stomach dropped. She remembered that night when Destin had stepped ininthe room late, bruised and bleeding, wearing that someone had run him off the road. She had believed his words. Yet, she had not known the whole story
kept journals,” he continued. “Things Lcould not say out brod 1 hid them in places thought to our world look. But now I know they found some. Maybe all. If they think you’ve read them. then they’ll come after you im‘
He looked straight into the camera. “Get out, fen. Leave the house hunt no one but Byam. He is the only one who never had a reason to lie to you.”
Then the video stapped
Tearsheimmed in her eyes, but she allowed them back. She clicked onto anathervides.
Then one other account. Each routed with more detail about business deals, the and the hold Devil’s father had on him. Each described a man trying to claw his way out from something, much larger than him
mom who had teled, ween
in in his own berkorn may, inprotect her.
But was tough?
Could she treat amthing from him now
She leaned back in her chair and stared at the colling
Ourside, wind picked up rustling through the tes
had gained a signal
One new message.
Did you watch them all yet? Tick tock
Blood Tuned to low in her w
The game wan‘ oret.
It had only jest begun.
Jennifer that the laptop and put up. She understood.
She grabbed her car ken, her bog, and her flash drive, and as she walked toward the front doce, her mind was
She would go to Byron and tell him everything. Ask him for Ballp.
But she would also prepare for the worst
For somebody wanted her to be terrified.
And she wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction.
When jender go to the graveyard, it was a grey sky. Heavy clouds that hung locking the sun cas long shadows over the quiet rows of heatstones below. It was a gentle but very cold Loenze, her skin rashed in like a whisper from the pan,
She packed close by at the weance and got out with a small bouquet of white lilies. Her fingers trembled, she clutched the flow Light to her chest–bur heart weighed down with old
Novody knew she was coming here. Now but her
Except ten had followed bar.
Where he is, that’s the long distance they’re keeping while he watches her walk slowly into the plaveyard, just another soul be walling and Limenting. He had won the pain in heat when the left the house, the way she changing close against a cost. He was not asking whese perhaps she was going, but something told him to go after her.
Quietly sealing through and genter entered one by one, gre prising each stone, at unealthy of dead and design. And step by step, she came to a bit was uning beneath a big widespreadnak tree.
Graves of children.
i was before a tiny headstone, simple and clean, that ale kosh. It was all say at the edges now, but she sat led and wed in down with her sleeve.
“Baby Langster”
Bar & Died: Never 13, 2030
For pret Lovej
It caught her breathy Bren now, it continued to take within the sharp edge of less he he, bingwand she laid the lie down at the base of the heat and sat back on h heels. Hier band lushed the cold want lightly
“m sorry,” she whispered “I should have been heir much soonet.”
She could not take her eyes
anything last now, not tear ended down any of her check. She hadcried enough tears in the past.
No knows the whole track,
even Byron. While mangled na Berlin, she had gotten porgrun
I change. Perhaps this love would keep thing together
Initially, a Dicket of hope arose amidut the chase. She fantasted, perhaps the baby would change things. Perhaps Devi
qur life had different pland.
Iran and isolation–the body gave up before she did. The baby could not hold on for the past seven months. She had given birth in silence and pain, alone, and eventually left the hospital wit
empty arma and a heart that never truly healed.
Chapter 14
22
And that was the day something inside her broke
Years later, she is still carrying the ghost of that child. A minute heartbeat that of
once lived beneath her own
move closer; he merely stood there, hands in his pockets, eyes filled
She raised her eyes, blinking, finally seeing Byron standing several steps behind her. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t m with something bomnes sadness and understanding.
Jennifer wiped her cheeks. “You followed me?
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She turned back to the beachtone. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”
Silence stretched between them, like a thread, thin but unbreakable.
Byron walked slowly across the grass, his footsteps soft. He stood beside her, then sat down next to her upon the cold earth.
Jennifer didn’t look at him, but there was a strange comfort in his presence.
“I was seven months along,” she said quietly. “It was a boy. We never named him. I didn’t even get to hold him.”
Byron’s game went to the go.
