Chapter Fifty-One
Declan
As I hit the accelerator, I can't help but reflect on the past several days and my entire life leading to this moment.
There's a chance this long drive through the endless field of dust clouds and sand could be the end for me.
Miles of emptiness with only a pair of headlights showing the way provide the perfect opportunity for my demise.
Anything could happen, and nobody would know about it until the sun rose the following day, assuming I would be found at all.
Because Murphy is such a cunt, his law runs a coyote in the narrow strip of gravel precisely where’s I’m heading. Instinctively, I slam on the brakes and spin the wheel to the left. The SUV swerves and skips, before stopping just shy of the doggish animal.
With my heart racing, I take a deep breath and look to the sky.
"Really, God? Really?" I say with objection.
When I return my gaze to the wild beast, it’s gone.
I whip my head left and right, looking for where it could have wandered, but see nothing beyond the fits of sand whirling about.
My hands shake furiously as I release the steering wheel to collect myself, something unexpected occurs.
Holographically imposed onto the barren desert landscape, Daphne Brooks appears in the bleak beams shining from the vehicle.
In tattered, torn and soot-covered clothes, she looks to have been stranded in this sandy abyss for eons.
Cuts and bruises cover most of the visible parts of her body.
Badly hurt, she yells for help. My eyes blur in disbelief, and by the time I shake them clear, Daphne is sitting squarely beside me in the passenger's seat. Her seat. My Daphne.
"What is going on?" I ask, joyfully horrified to see her. "Where did you come from?"
"I’ve been here all along babe," she says through crusty dehydrated lips. "I’ve been waiting for you to pick me up."
"That doesn’t make any sense," I say, feeling the familiar weight of confusion. "Why are you wandering around the desert?"
"Because you abandoned me, Declan," Daphne replies with a creepy smile. "I waited for you, and you never showed. I thought you loved me, Declan."
"I did love you. I—do love you," I insist, my mind playing tricks. "But you disappeared. I looked everywhere for you."
"How can you say that?" Daphne’s face shifts to one of sorrow. "You were my everything, Declan, and you forsook me."
"I did no such thing!" I exclaim while a frustrated tear escapes my eye. "I spent six months trying to find you. I thought—we all thought—you were dead."
"We? Who is 'we,' Declan? You mean that snake? That terror of a doctor?" she snarls. "I told you not to trust him. But you couldn’t do what I asked. You just had to tell him about us, didn’t you? This has all been part of his plan. He left me out here, waiting for you. This is what he wants."
"What the hell are you talking about? It’s been six years, Daphne. Six years! Does that even register to you?" I retort defensively, feeling trapped by her words.
"Oh, come on now honey, you know better," she says with a malicious laugh. "It’s been much longer than that. You and I..." She pauses deliberately, watching for my reaction. "We go back, much further back."
"Huh?" I find myself fumbling over her words, unable to see past the image of the woman I once loved.
"Baby," Daphne murmurs, turning away for a moment. "We go back more than a decade—almost two, now. Ha, ha, ha."
My heart stops cold when she turns back to meet my gaze. Those blazing cherry eyes glow in her sockets like a lone stop signal on a rural road in the dead of night. "You fail me."
At first, I barely felt the crushing weight on my chest, but now, locked in a fierce stare with this demon whose fiery eyes burn like the sun over the barren desert, Daphne's unresolved disappearance continues to suffocate me.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" I unleash a primal roar, slamming my foot onto the gas pedal with every ounce of strength.
My eyes squeeze shut as a scream tears through my throat, raw, desperate, and full of rage.
The engine responds with a deafening thunder, and the tires spin violently, whipping up a ferocious storm of dust. Either this demented thing will be obliterated into the scorching horizon, leaving me in hard-won peace, or I'll hurl myself recklessly into the abyss, colliding with fate to end this torment for us both.