The Surviving Trace

by Calia Read

  The Surviving Trace

  Copyright © 2018 by Calia Read

  Interior design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba, Mae I Design and Photography

  Editing by Cassie Cox, Joy Editing

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  ALSO BY CALIA READ

  Figure Eight

  Sloan Brothers

  Every Which Way

  Breaking the Wrong

  Ruin You Completely

  Fairfax Series

  Unravel

  Unhinge

  PART I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  PART II

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY- ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  PART III

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  To Joshua—

  As of now, I’ve wrote over 300,000 words and none of that would be possible if it wasn’t for you. To you, there’s no such thing as limitations and you’ve helped me believe the same thing.

  This book is yours.

  Air five.

  I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.

  —Exodus 34:7 (NLT)

  I’VE ONLY FELT the cold hands of death twice in my life.

  The first time, I was fourteen. I watched my aunt die in a small hospital room. We were prepared for her death, but seeing her life slowly fade away was chilling. My parents, brothers, and I surrounded her bed, waiting in muted silence for her to take her final breaths. The heaviness of the situation bore down on me until it felt as if I were the one struggling to breathe. I had to say something.

  “Aren’t you scared?” I finally whispered.

  “Not at all,” she whispered back. Then she smiled. “I’m at peace.”

  My mother stepped in before I could reply, but my aunt’s words lingered in my head. How could there be peace in death?

  The second time is now.

  The peace my aunt spoke of? It’s slowly wrapping itself around me. No wonder she was so relaxed. The knowledge that I am going to end my life is dissolving and the only thing that seems to matter now is how I lived, how I loved, and what I sacrificed for that love.

  That’s how I know what I’m about to do is right. Good, in fact, because in less than a second, every single bad thing will end. All I have to do is pull the trigger.

  That doesn’t mean I’m ready. I still have so much to do. To say. But the edges of my life are burning, crumbling in on themselves.

  I’m sitting, but the room feels as if it’s stretching, trying its hardest to run from me. I exhale shakily and rest my head against the cold brick wall behind me. Water seeps between the bricks, dampening my hair. Directly above my head are wooden shelves with empty mason jars, cobwebs looped between the jars. Old, rusted out pipes run above my head, leaking water. The drops slowly fall onto the ground.

  Drip… drip… drip.

  The rickety staircase that leads to the basement door is barricaded as best as possible but that does nothing to alleviate my fears. Anyone could burst down here if they really wanted to.

  The only light in the room comes from a bulb hanging directly above my head. Weak yellow light appears for a minute before it slowly fades away. On the opposite wall is a small excuse for a window. The glass is covered with grime and dust. Hardly any light comes through. The air smells musty, as though rust and the damp earth have come together to form their own scent.

  My gaze drifts to the head on my lap. Gently, I brush his hair back from his forehead. I’m afraid to move. To breathe. Inside, I’m dying to hang on to him as tightly as I can. But I hold back; I’ve already done enough damage to him. To his life.

  Blood mats his hair and drips down his face, mixing with the water leaking from his eyes. Colored tears. Even he knows what’s about to happen.

  His breathing is becoming slower, shallower, as if every breath is a chore.

  Frantically, I turn toward the closed door. In a few minutes, someone will open it. I feel it in my gut. My time is running out. So I look back at him.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  My fingernails are caked with dirt, my hands filthy. That doesn’t stop me from brushing my fingers across his skin. I’m only spreading dirt across his cheek, but I can’t not touch him. My minutes and seconds with him are down to the wire.

  Drip… drip… drip.

  “You know the people who chose love over the world?” I say.

  He nods.

  “I can’t do that.” My voice breaks as a tear slips down my cheek. “It’d be one of the most selfish things I’d ever do.”

  Footsteps sound above our heads, rattling the floorboards so hard, dust rains down on us. My hands shake as I reach for the cool metal object to my left. It’s almost time.

  This is the right thing, I tell myself.

  So why are the walls around my heart crashing down?

  “I brought you to this point,” I whisper.

  This is our last moment of peace.

  Fists pound against the basement door. A voice shouts. My heart accelerates. I gaze down at him. His eyes are pleading, desperate for this to not be the end.

  But it is; I’m all out of options.

  The door breaks open. Pieces of wood tumble down the stairs. Yellow light pours in, outlining a figure. Heavy footsteps reverberate through the room, matching the rapid pounding of my heart. The mason jars behind me rattle and shake. A few give up and fall to the floor. The glass shatters, breaking into millions of pieces.

  We’re tucked away in the corner. It’s only a matter of seconds before he sees us.

  So I touch him one last time. “I’m so sorry.”

  I’m doing the right thing. But I hold still because if I think about this, I�
�ll fear what lies in wait for me—a life without him.

  Fresh tears fall, trailing down my cheeks and landing on his forehead.

  Truth be told, I think I’ve always been slipping away. I’ve been walking the tightrope between all the yesterdays and tomorrows for a long time. At some point, I was bound to fall. In a few seconds, everything will be over.

  In a few seconds, his pain will disappear.

  With a shaky hand, I raise the gun and press it against my temple. He makes an odd choking sound, and the person directly in front of us appears momentarily shocked. But that person’s shock only lasts for a second before they raise a gun of their own.

  I squeeze my eyes shut right as they shout his name.

  “I love you,” I whisper, then I pull the trigger.

  Then I’m outside, falling from a second-floor balcony. The world moves about in a gnarled shade of gray and onyx. Air whooshes around me as I wildly claw for something to grasp. In front of me is a black outline of a body. It’s the man who was in my lap moments ago. He holds out a hand and tries to grab me, but I slip farther away, sucked into a vortex, pushed by gravity. I open my mouth to scream for help, yet no sound comes out.

  My voice may be on mute, but I hear him screaming. He’s calling my name.

  “Serene! Serene!”

  My vision blurs, and before I know it, a dense fog slowly curls around his body until poof. He’s gone, yet I can still hear him calling my name.

  Frantically, I glance behind me. I’m seconds away from hitting the ground. I close my eyes and pray for the world to swallow me whole.

  And then it does.

  “SERENE!”

  My eyes fly open. I blink rapidly, trying to adjust to the bright light.

  “Turn it off,” a male voice groggily says.

  I jolt in shock and turn to my left. It takes me a minute to realize it’s Will lying next to me and everything I experienced was only a dream.

  That’s it.

  Slowly, I sit up and turn off my alarm then fall back onto the mattress. Staring at the ceiling, I take a few deep, calming breaths. The worst dreams are the ones that take you outside of your mind. The ones that feel so real, you question if everything you experienced indeed happened. I lift both arms, expecting to see goose bumps from the cold air. But there’s nothing.

  In this dream, it’s not the falling that scared me. It’s the fear. I’ve never felt anything like it.

  Will rolls over and slings an arm around my waist. His dark brown hair is in complete disarray. A few seconds pass before he lifts his head and looks at me. “Your heart is pounding,” he says in a deep rasp.

  I’ve woken up to his face for the past two years, and it still hasn’t gotten old. I met Will at Penn State. I was in my second year; he was in his third. We were both in the library. It was the week before Christmas break, and everyone was cramming before finals. All the tables were packed, but there was one lone seat right next to him.

  As quietly as possible, I placed my bag next to the seat and sat down. No one at the table lifted their heads in acknowledgment. No one but Will.

  He didn’t say hi. Or speak for that matter. But he gave me a shy smile before he went back to studying.

  I sat by him the next day and the day after that before he finally gathered the courage to say something to me. It took him a week to ask me out. His shy, quiet demeanor immediately pulled me in. He wasn’t cocky and sure of himself, and for those reasons, I said yes.

  And now here we are, newly engaged with our future spread out before us. I lift my left hand and watch the diamond sparkle in the light. I take another deep breath. “I had a weird dream.”

  “What was it about?”

  I drop my hand and stare at the ceiling. “It’d take too long to explain. Besides, we have to get up.”

  Will groans and rolls over. I lean toward him and kiss his right shoulder.

  “If we don’t get up now, we never will,” I say.

  The two of us rise out of bed like zombies. Will goes to the kitchen to make coffee while I head straight to the bathroom to shower. We have our morning routine down pat. After I’m finished getting dressed, we switch places, and I go to the kitchen for some coffee.

  We’ve lived in our small one-bedroom apartment for so long that I easily navigate through the rooms without any of the lights on. Sunlight streams in through the cracks in the blinds, trails across the wood floors, and slashes across off-white walls.

  I’m on autopilot as I enter the kitchen and go through the motions of starting my day, continuing to analyze my dream and what it could mean. I believe that some dreams have no rhyme or reason. You can overhear a conversation or see something on TV and think nothing of it, yet it still manages to slip inside your mind. But some dreams have a deeper meaning.

  All I can think is one thing—who was that man from my dream?

  I would remember a face like his. His eyes are what pulled at me. They were desperate, never straying from mine. Not for a second. He stared at me as though I held all the answers to life. More than that, he stared at me as though he loved me. The strange part? I seemed to have loved him too.

  Merely thinking about it makes goose bumps break across my skin.

  “Uh… I think your mug is full.”

  I jump and turn at the sound of Will’s voice. He nods toward the coffee cup in my hand, making me realize I’m still pouring coffee into an already full cup. The brown liquid trails over the rim and onto the counter before dripping onto the floor.

  “Shit.” Hastily, I put the coffeepot down, grab a towel, and sloppily clean it up as best as possible.

  “What are you thinking about?” Will asks with a smile.

  I hurry over to the sink and wring out the towel. I grab my coffee mug and glance at Will. “Just thinking about my dream.”

  “You’re still thinking about it? Now I have to know what happened.”

  I take a tentative sip of my coffee before I put a lid on my mug and lean against the counter. “It was random. I was in a basement with a guy on my lap who was bleeding everywhere.”

  “Was the guy me?” Will teases.

  “He wasn’t. But someone was after us. They busted down the door, came running down the stairs toward us, and then I woke up.”

  Okay, so I left out the part where I was willing to take my own life to save him, but I told the majority of the truth.

  Will raises both brows. “What kind of dream is that?”

  “I know, right? It was intense.”

  “Intense, but fictional.” He stands in front of me and places his hands on the counter behind me, effectively caging me in. “The chance of that happening is incredibly low.”

  Smiling, I lean against him and wrap my arms around him.

  “But since I love you, I think it’s fair that I give you a word of advice.”

  Curiously, I lift my head and meet his solemn gaze.

  “Steer clear of basements.”

  I roll my eyes and gently shove his arm.

  Will chuckles softly. “It’s all that old junk you’re surrounded by. The antique fumes are going straight to your head.”

  “Don’t insult my passion,” I tease back.

  “If you had to choose between me or an antique, which one would it be?”

  I tap my index finger against the corner of my lip and pretend to think over the question. Seconds tick by, then I snap my fingers and point my index finger at him. “Antiques.”

  “I knew it,” he replies, deadpan. “Do you have a busy day at the shop?”

  I grab my purse from the kitchen table. “I’ll probably be working late tonight.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Will replies with a grin.

  “Liz said she found a lot of good stuff at a few estate sales and flea markets over the weekend. We’re going to try to inventory all of it,” I say as we walk toward the front door.

  “You spend so much time at the shop you might as well put a cot in your office.”

 
“That’s not true,” I protest weakly.

  Will opens the door and gestures for me to go before him. “It is. I can’t remember the last time we had a night out.”

  I stop in the middle of the hallway and grab his arm. “I know I’ve been busy, but once everything calms down, we can spend all the time in the world together.” I slip an arm around his waist as we head down the stairs. “And while we’re spending all that time together, we can finally settle on a date for our wedding.”

  Six months ago, Will proposed to me in front of my family while we were home for the Fourth of July. Saying yes was a no-brainer. He’s driven, smart, and most importantly, one of the kindest guys I know. To put it short, he’s everything I want. I love him and can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else.

  “We don’t have to wait to spend time together to set a date. That decision can happen at any moment. Here’s a date off the top of my head—June 7th.”

  “I’m not going to pluck a date out of thin air. I want a date that matches my vision of our wedding. Take flowers, for example.” Will rolls his eyes, but I continue. “They have to be everywhere at our ceremony and what if I want a specific flower that isn’t in bloom in June?”

  “It will be June. I think every flower is in bloom in June,” he says dryly.

  We stop at the landing of the stairs. Will grabs his keys from his back pocket. I snatch them from his hands and hold them behind my back to keep his attention. “I know you mean well, but I’m not picking a wedding date at random. But I will pick one soon, okay?” I say with a small smile teasing the edges of my lips.

  Will holds my face between his hands. “As I’ve said before, I don’t care about the date. I just want to marry you.” He gives me a quick kiss. “I’d love to continue this conversation, but I have to go or I’m going to be late. I have to meet a client in thirty minutes.”

  Will is a pay per click specialist. He’s in charge of advertising campaigns. Typically, he works from home, but there are times when he meets with clients to form a new campaign to best suit their business.