Buried Within

Prologue

SAGE

I’m lounging on the couch, watching a rerun of some reality dating show, when I hear a knock on the front door. Pausing the TV, I pad my way across the hardwood on bare feet to answer it.

I lift onto my tiptoes to look out the peephole, seeing two police officers standing on my porch. A man with a full black beard and a woman with a tight bun on the back of her head. An uneasy feeling seeps into my veins as I pull open the door, staring up at them expectantly.

“Miss Lindman?” the woman questions, her face soft.

“Yeah?”

She reaches out a hand, as if in greeting, but there’s also sadness swimming in her gaze. I don’t shake it, just stare with a boulder sitting in my gut. After a few heartbeats, she slowly pulls her hand back to her side and clears her throat.

“Miss Lindman, I’m Detective Mathis, and this”—she waves her hand to the police officer standing next to her—“is Officer Gillum. I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

She pauses to gauge my reaction, but I just swallow down the lump in my throat and try not to throw up the anxious monsters that are attacking my stomach. “Okay…?”

The detective takes a breath, her head tilting a little when she speaks again. “It’s your parents. They were in a car accident. I’m so sorry to tell you this, but they died at the scene.”

Her voice fades away as the blood rushes through my ears, and I can barely hear the words leaving her mouth after that.

The room spins, so I hold on to the door to keep myself upright. I blink as I try to focus on what the woman before me is saying, but can’t seem to make any of the words out; it’s like she’s speaking a different language.

I clear my throat, still gripping the door.

“I—I need to sit down.”

My gaze slides back up to the woman’s face, and she nods. “Of course. Do you need someone to sit with you?”

I’m shaking my head before she finishes her sentence, desperate for them to get off my porch and let me process this alone. Once the shock wears off, it isn’t going to be pretty. I can feel the anxiety simmering inside my chest, waiting to suffocate me.

“Thank you…for…telling me.” My words feel forced, robotic, catatonic. I push the door closed, then lean my back up against it, my legs trembling to hold me up.

I suck down oxygen until my lungs feel like they’re going to burst, then I blow it out slowly. I repeat this a dozen times until my head feels less dizzy. Standing up straight, I test my legs, and when I don’t crumble to the floor, I walk across the house again to sit back down on the couch.

I disassociate, somehow realizing it’s happening as my eyes fill with tears. My vision blurs, so I slam my eyes shut, sending liquid streaming down my face.

Lacing my fingers together in my lap, I dig my nails into my flesh hard enough to bring me back to the present.

My skin stings as I break through with my nails, and I snap my eyes back open to look at my hands.

Blood pools around the fingernails that are still buried in my flesh, but it doesn’t feel the way I expected it to.

It stings, but it doesn’t hurt.

Not as much as my chest aches. My heart. My soul.

“Fuck,” I rasp, releasing my hands from one another and running my fingers across my face to wipe away my tears.

I pull my phone from the coffee table and scroll through my contacts.

Who do I call?

Pressing my uncle’s number, I put the phone to my ear. It rings five times before he answers.

“There's my favorite niece!” His warm voice booms through the phone, feeling like a punch to the gut.

I swallow down the sob crawling up my throat. “Hi.”

“What is it, Sage?” he asks, worry lacing his tone, making me cry out as pain wracks through my body.

I can't control the sobs now; they come over and over, rocking my frame so viciously that I fall onto the back of the couch.

“Sage, what’s the matter? What happened?” my uncle asks, sounding more panicked now. I can hear him moving around, like he’s walking somewhere.

I gasp for air, trying to calm myself down. “It’s Mom and Dad.”

My tears soak my phone, and I can't find it in myself to care. My uncle speaks again. “What about them?”

“They’re dead,” I breathe out, hearing the words leave my mouth for the first time. I scream at the top of my lungs as reality sinks in and grief takes over.

They’re dead. Dead. Dead.