He takes another step towards me. His eyes dart across the room as he turns his head with jerky movements.”That’s when he threw her out, just like that.”
“Josh?”
I feel sick. Colby is seeking revenge for his sister’s death. He wants to hurt Josh, and he’s going to use me to do that.
He lifts his hand in a fist, and my back hits the wall. “She had a baby inside her when they killed her.”
I can feel the air being sucked from the room. Every cell inside of my body is telling me to run, but he’s too close. I have to try and distract him somehow.
“Who had a baby?” I stumble over my words watching him take another step. He has a deep gash on his cheek, and his one eye looks grayed. The tips of his fingers are taped, and his red hair is thinning on one side.
Suddenly his whole demeanor changes, and I watch him become someone else. “Lilly. It was mine.”
Has he told you about me, how he pounded his fists in my face so hard that I had to get reconstructive surgery?” He snorts.
“Or has he been too busy fucking your brains out?”
His lips pull up into a malicious smile before he leaps across the floor. My blood freezes as everything happens in slow motion. I turn to run, but he gets me by the leg and starts pulling me back into the room, his cold bony fingers digging into my naked skin.
“Let go of me!” I yell, holding on to the doorframe, but he grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me back, hard. Pain shoots through my skull as he pulls harder.
“Tsk tsk tsk, come now, the fun is just starting, princess. We don’t want Josh to be disappointed when he finds you, we want to make it memorable, and I want him to know why his sister died. I want him to suffer for all the pain they brought to my family. My sister couldn’t breathe; she suffocated to death. I stayed with her, watched her gasping, clawing at her throat, until she stopped.”
I scramble to get up as he drags me along the carpet by my hair, into the tiled bathroom, and into the shower. I turn my head as he stands up against me, lifting my hands. He pulls out a cable tie and ties my hands to the exposed steel pipe against the wall. Pain shoots through me as he lets go of me, and my toes hardly touch the ground. The plastic cuts into my skin, burning and stretching my arms above my head.
He wipes his oily hair from his face and steps out of the large shower, and then leans back against the cabinet looking at me. “Are you ready to die for the man you love?”
I freeze, unable to move, as his words hang in the air like daggers, pointing straight at my heart. He pushes himself away from the cabinet and walks over to the bath, leans over, and opens the tap.
“Please let me go, I’m sorry about Mary, and I know it must have been hard for you losing her, but hurting me isn’t going to bring her back.” I gasp for breath, tears running down my cheeks, trying to keep myself up on my toes.
He looks up and out the window. “It helps with the pain, for a while it’s not my pain, but yours that I feel.” He drifts off for a moment.
He checks his watch then gets up and walks over to the room and comes back with my phone. “You know what’s even better, when your pain hurts someone else, like your beloved Joshua. I want him to suffer just like I’m suffering, every fucking day. All those girls I hurt, it’s all because of him. Their blood is on him.”
My legs cramp, I am slipping against the tiles, my skin is burning as the plastic cuts into my wrists. “Please Colby, I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone, please don’t do it again, it’s not too late for you!”
He throws my phone against the wall, and it shatters across the floor. He glares at me from underneath his long, greasy hair. “Don’t fucking preach to me you slut, you’re a fuck toy, and you don’t even know it. He doesn’t love you; he’s incapable of love. He’s going to fuck you until he’s tired of you, and then he’s going to throw you out to the dogs where you can lay and lick your wounds. He only cares about himself and his needs, you’re nothing, do you hear me?” He slams his fist against the mirror, shattering it.
I can feel the taste of blood on my lips as I bite them. I shiver, ice cold, eyes blurry, shaking inside. This is it, he is going to kill me, this sick fuck is going to kill me, and Josh and Ben are going to find me here, in the same place they found his sister. It’s a recurring nightmare.
He looks down at his bloody fist, then pulls a shard of glass from the mirror and runs his finger over it. He puts it on the ledge of the bath and takes something from his pants pocket. He pries my mouth open and puts something small and round inside, then he holds my jaw closed. It is bitter as it dissolves on my tongue. He cuts me down and carries me to the bath.
“Lie down,” he instructs, pushing me into the bath. Sitting on the edge, he reaches over and takes the glass shard in his hands.
I feel drowsy, drugged, cold, scared. “Please, please, you don’t have to do this,” I sob and stutter between my teeth clattering from shock as the bath fills with cold water. By the time the water reaches the underside of my chin, I am shaking violently.
“Stop, please, don’t,” I cry, but he lifts his hand and puts it on top of my head. Oh, God no, please no, I gasp as he applies pressure, pushing me lower, the water rising over my mouth. I try to push against the other side, but my legs are too short.
I fill my lungs before the cold water covers my face. I try to fight back, but it’s hopeless, whatever he’s given me is making me sleepy. A flame appears above the water…a candle? Seconds turn into minutes. I’ve stopped moving now…the will to fight is gone, my lungs burn.
I close my eyes, and I see Josh standing in the door looking at me with that sexy grin. I feel him pushing me up against the wall in the pub, breathing into my ear, I look into his eyes, lying on the piano with my legs lifted up over his shoulders as he kisses me, and then…we’re in his bed, with his arms wrapped around me…drifting off to sleep, I hear him say the words I’ve wanted to hear…
I love you, Sophie Blake…
Chapter 34
~Ben~
The gate is open as we pull up to the house. Alice is babbling nonstop, talking about work and friends, and how much she loves Seattle. My eyes drift over to Josh, and my hair stands up on my neck. Something’s not right. Alice is pushed back in her seat as Josh races down the long driveway.
“…the fuck!” he jumps out and runs through the front door that’s wide open.
Alice looks at me shocked, she opens her mouth, but I turn back. “Call the cops and stay in the car, I mean it.”
Chills run down my spine as I run in behind Josh whose voice is echoing through the house, but only silence answers.
“Sophie, where the fuck are you baby. For God’s sake please answer me!”
His eyes look wild as he runs past me to the elevator “She called me from the theatre room, maybe she fell asleep.”
He pounds the button when suddenly he stops. His words turn to ice when we see the muddy footprints on the stairs, leading up to the bedrooms.
‘Sophie! Fuck! Baby answer me!” We race up the stairs taking three steps at a time. At the top he goes left and I run right.
“She’s not here!” I can hear him yelling from the other side as doors slam.
I run back towards the stairs when the sound of water running makes my blood run cold. Suddenly, it’s like déjà vu.
I turn my head to the stairs. A split second later we are both running to the one door that holds all of our demons. Lilly’s room.
“Josh, wait!” I reach out for him, but he flies forward with all his strength pushing the bathroom door open. I run in after him into the inferno that is our own personal hell.
Josh lurches forward, screaming in terror. Water splashes over the edge as he lifts her pale lifeless body out onto the floor. Her hands and feet tied, with blood running from her wrists.
I stand frozen, unable to move, watching Josh cradle her in his arms, calling out like a man possessed for her not
to leave him. The sound of sirens slices through the haze, but I can’t speak. The words form in my mind as bile rises in the back of my throat.
Then, from the corner of my eye, a shoe, someone huddles underneath the floating basins…Colby.
He has a gun in his hand, and a smile of relief on his lips. Police storm into the bathroom, pushing me aside as they lunge for him, but he just looks at me, the gun pointed to his head, and pulls the trigger.
I envy him for leaving this world because it feels impossible to stay, now.
Chapter 35
~Josh~
Three months later, Lake View Cemetery, Seattle, WA
The wind rustles around the gravestones where my heart and soul are buried with the ones I love. I lay the flowers on their graves and take a step back. The last time I was here was three months ago, the morning of the attack, the day my life changed irrevocably.
I never thought I could hurt more than I did when Mama and Lilly died, until I saw her lying there, wrists bound and cut, bleeding out in the water. My demons ended up hurting the only woman I’ve ever loved, the one I would die for, the one I wanted to spend my life with.
I couldn’t remember praying before now. I wasn’t even sure who I was praying to, but it brought me some comfort, sitting next to her bed, waiting for her to open her eyes and save me…again.
“Josh,” her soft voice pulls me out of my reverie. I turn to look into those deep blue eyes that have become my reason to breathe.
I hold my hand out, and she puts her small hand in mine, cuddling underneath my arm. She looks up, and I place my lips on her forehead.
“You okay?” Her voice calms the raging storm inside of me.
“Now I am,” I swallow back the tears.
After everything I’ve done wrong in my life, being a downright sonofabitch, I have her, an angel. God knows I don’t deserve her, not one second of time with her. Every day with her is a gift, a new beginning, an answered prayer for a sinner. This woman is my end and my beginning. She is the only reason my heart’s still beating.
“Mama, Lilly, this is Sophie, the angel you sent to look out for me. She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Sophie looks up, tears running down her cheeks. Her hands snap to her mouth as I pull the little red velvet box from my pocket and reveal the diamond heart sitting inside.
I bend down on one knee underneath that big oak tree with Mama and Lilly as my witnesses, and speak the words I never thought I would.
“Sophie Blake, you are the delicate butterfly who has survived my raging hurricane.
You are an angel sent from heaven who lifted me out of hell; you saved my life with the touch of your grace, and your unselfish love and relentless belief in me.
I know that because of me, your burden is heavy, but I promise, if you give me a chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life carrying that weight for you, adoring you, loving only you, reminding you every day of how perfect we are.
You are the northern star that leads me home when I’ve lost my way, you are every perfect dandelion that holds a thousand wishes, and your love is as unique as the fingerprints you’ve left on my heart and soul.
I will never be good enough or deserving of your love, baby, but I promise you this, nobody will ever love you more than I do, not on earth or in heaven.
Please, will you marry me?”
Epilogue
There’s a strange sense of calm that came over me when I knew it was the end and my subconscious allowed me to hear the words Josh said when he thought I was sleeping. Knowing he loved me made death seem insignificant.
Our love has come at a price, but no price is too high for what we have now. We got married six weeks after Josh proposed to me underneath the big oak tree with his mom and sister as witnesses.
It was a small intimate gathering with a few of our friends in Port Angeles. Ben, Alice and Nana, and Megan. Afterwards, Josh whisked me off to a secret location for a month-long honeymoon. We arrived under the veil of night at the Hilton a Bora Nui Resort & Spa, which was absolutely breathtaking, and after two lavish weeks, we left for the south of France, where we stayed in a villa for another two weeks, then to Sweden for a ski-holiday. Ben took his part of the cut he got from Josh’s shares and he and Alice were currently touring Canada. Nana sold the house and moved to her sister’s. Everything was perfect.
I was Mrs. Sophie Manning, and I loved every second of it. After everything we had been through, we were closer than ever before. Josh was the perfect husband, taking care of my every need, just as he said he would when he proposed.
At times it felt like being together was an impossible dream, but in the end it turns out we didn’t need perfect to have a happy ending.
Our love is made up from the broken pieces and scars we carry, that will always remind us just how sweet our fairytale is…
~The End~
About the Author
Mechelle lives in Auckland New Zealand. She loves thunderstorms and sweet tea.
Fairy lights and books make her happy! Hurricane Butterfly is her debut novel.
You can also find her here
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
About the Author
Hurricane Butterfly Page 12