CHAPTER TWENTY-THREEJayden
Jayden
Our kitten sleeps between us again, where she belongs. The first night she refused to touch us, but she’s gotten more relaxed now, not going stiff every time our skin brushes. It feels nice in a way I didn’t expect. I find myself relaxing around her.
I pull her soft, sexy body into me. I can’t get enough of her soft curves, her silky skin, and the little hairs on the back of her neck. She makes a mewling sound that turns me on and starts to wriggle away.
“No.” I clamp her down. I need her tonight. My heart has been racing all day. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but my mind keeps hijacking my control.
I fall asleep with her tucked into me.
I wake up, and she’s gone. I’m in my mom’s living room, with its maroon and green decor and live laugh love signs.
Panic runs through me, and I start to sweat.
Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
I look around the small room. No one is here with me.
I need to get there in time. I need to hurry.
I run down to her room and find her before I get there.
She’s lying on the ground, half out of the bathroom.
She’s face up, her eyes are open, and her lips are blue.
“No!” I drop to my knees beside her and start CPR. She’s cold. I feel her ribs crack beneath my hands. No, no, no, I wasn’t in time. There’s a pill bottle on the sink. It’s Advil, but I know what she actually keeps in there.
“Fuck. Come back to me, Mom.”
As I work on her, suddenly, a wound opens up in her chest. A gunshot wound. Her blood is hot on my hands.
I jerk back. I stand, only to realize I’m in uniform. The person laying in front of me isn’t my mother, it’s the man I shot. My gun is in my hand. I smell gunpowder.
More people show up, coming from the rooms down the hall.
“He shot him.”
“Killed him!”
My chest heaves for breath. This isn’t how it happened.
Suddenly I’m in a courtroom. The same courtroom I sent criminals to. Only I’m behind the desk before the judge. And the judge is the man I killed. The man who pulled a gun on me and tried to shoot me that one night at work.
He stands and points at me. “Guilty! This man is a murderer. Guilty!”
I panic. I know he’s about to pull a gun. I know I have to kill him before he kills me. But where’s my gun? I scramble to find it. Where is my gun?