Tag: suspense

She’d hit him.

His beautiful, sweet, perfect Lani had hit him.

White had known for the last three years that staying away from Alannah, allowing her to believe he was dead, was hurting her. But it wasn’t until this moment that he realised just how much. In his mind he had always believed that once the threat was gone he could return to her and they would pick up their lives like it had never happened. Now he knew that learning he was alive, especially like this, had made her hate him.

He was never getting her back.

The loss hit him hard and he finally understood how bad it must have been for Alannah. All he wanted to do was drop to his knees and scream how/why?!?!

As badly as he wanted to force her to understand that he had literally had zero choice, it was fake his death or lose the woman he loved for real, she had come here for a reason. A reason he needed to know because there were only three people in the entire world who knew he wasn’t dead, who knew where he was hiding and had the codes to gain access.

Alannah wasn’t one of those three people.

Since his attempts to soothe her had failed miserably, he stared at the woman with her back against the wall, her breathing erratic, tears streaming down pale cheeks, her silvery grey eyes so full of pain it caused a physical ache in his chest. She was his Lani and yet she wasn’t. This woman felt like a stranger. A stranger he still loved with every fibre of his being. A stranger he knew loved him back even as she hated him for his deception.

She was thinner than the last time he’d seen her, all those soft curves had disappeared. Her face was gaunt, much too pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. There was a stiffness to the open, vibrant woman he remembered, and the way she had her arms wrapped around her stomach in a gesture of self comfort had him longing to pull her into his arms to comfort her. Wipe away her tears, kiss her until she forgave him, feed her until her curves returned, and …

His thoughts trailed away when he noticed that her black hoodie was wet just beneath where her arms were wrapped around her stomach. It wasn’t raining out and she was wet only in that one place.

Blood.

His Lani was hurt.

Before he could demand answers, once again her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.

The world swirled around her.

The sensation sickening.

Alannah remembered the last time she’d felt like this. Like she was trapped in a rip tide being dragged out to sea. The beach was her favorite place in the whole entire world, a place she used to share with the man she loved, the man she was going to marry. Wilson had hated the ocean and the sand, but he went for her, to make her happy.

Three years ago Wilson had been ripped away from her. Killed just days before their wedding.

He hadn’t been in the house she had run to seeking help.

He hadn’t grabbed her and slammed her agains the wall when she entered the code and walked inside the house of the person who was supposed to help her.

He hadn’t stared at her with his usual eyes that were so pale a shade of blue that they appeared white.

He wasn’t among the undead, he was just dead dead.

He wasn’t here.

He wasn’t holding her like he loved her.

Because if he really was alive and he had allowed her to live three hellish years believing the love of her life was gone then he had never loved her at all.

“Lani, wake up, baby,” his voice crooned and she felt his fingers sweep across her neck, stroking her skin like he used to when she was having a panic attack and he wanted to soothe her.

Choking on a sob, Alannah bolted upright, scrambled off the couch she had been laid out on when she fainted, and backed up until she was against the wall.

Wilson really was standing there. There were scars on the bare skin of his chest, on his hands, and his face. There was pain in his expression along with something she refused to acknowledge because his death had almost broken her and he obviously was not dead.

“Baby, I’ll explain, I swear,” he said, walking slowly towards her, palms up, tone soothing.

Only it didn’t soothe.

It was gasoline being added to the fire sparking inside her.

“Stay away from me you monster,” she screamed, slapping his cheek as soon as he came within striking range. The sting on her palm only reminded her that this man had caused her more pain than anyone else ever had, and she hated him every bit as much as she had once loved him.

The blare of an alarm ripped right through his skull.

Groggy White lifted his head from … the hardwood floors of his living room.

What was he doing passed out on the floor?

A raging headache, and nausea swirling in his stomach answered that question.

He had passed out drunk and was now hungover. And the alarm telling him someone was approaching his remote cabin had been set off.

Perfect.

Staggering to his feet, White looked around his messy living room searching for his weapon. It had to be around here somewhere and he knew better than to lose it to the chaos that was his home.

Why had he been stupid enough to get drunk? He knew better, actually he didn’t drink at all except for one night of the year.

The anniversary of the day he died.

Three years ago today his life had ended. Just because he had been revived didn’t mean that he wasn’t still dead, just in a different way.

Finally locating his weapon under a pile of empty pizza boxes, he hurried to the table where his tablet lay, and brought up the security feeds. Being a dead man sucked partly because the people who wanted him dead could never find out that he had survived the blast that was supposed to end his life.

Being dead was living under a never-ending death sentence.

Now someone had found him and right when he was hungover and not operating at one hundred percent.

It wasn’t until he studied the footage that he realised that whoever was coming knew the code to his gate. The vehicle was unfamiliar though, didn’t belong to one of the handful of people who knew he was alive.

Trouble.

White tracked the vehicle as it drove down the driveway, stopping outside his cabin. The person who got out was shrouded in black jeans and a black hoodie with the hood pulled up covering their face. Body was too small to belong to anyone who should be here, so he kept the house quiet and crept towards the front door, ready to grab the intruder as soon as they stepped foot inside, assuming they had the code for the front door as well.

He was right. Footsteps echoed on the porch, the beep of the locks disengaging had him balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to spring like an angry lion pouncing on its prey.

The figure stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them and White didn’t hesitate. He sprung at the person, grabbed them and slammed them up against the wall hard enough to cause them to cry out in pain.

It wasn’t until he heard the sound that he went still.

Completely still.

His past colliding with his presence in the most horrific of ways.

In denial he spun the person around, shoved the hood of their face and stared into the silvery grey eyes he had thought he would never see again. While relief hit him hard the other person didn’t have those same warm and fuzzy feelings.

They stared in shock for several long moments before their eyes rolled back in their head and they collapsed.