Chapter Thirty Nate
Chapter Thirty
Nate
I’m awake inside a nightmare. Or maybe I’m on my way to hell.
I thought it was bad enough when LaPierre locked me into this concrete cell, but it’s worse now that the sun has gone down.
There’s no light shining through the barred window, only a cold and bluish fluorescent glow from an overhead bulb in a cage.
It’s deathly quiet except for another inmate hacking and coughing, occasionally spitting.
This is a hellish place, and I don’t belong here.
I want to go home and get a second chance, but Sienna’s in the hospital.
She’s bruised, broken, and battered. She’s on life support, and I might never see her again.
She might die, and if that happens, I’ll never forgive myself. I might as well die too.
But this hell of mine can’t be any worse than what she went through when she was swept off the rocks and fought for survival in the raging, ice-cold ocean waves.
God . . . I’m losing it again. My body shudders, and I fight not to sob, because no one has any sympathy here.
Besides, I can’t be absolved. Nor can I change what I did.
I asked for money again, even after I promised to stop putting the restaurant ahead of our family.
That’s why she ran away from me, toward the waves.
I let out a loud, wretched sob.
“Shut up!” someone shouts.
I fight for breath and use the scratchy wool blanket to wipe at my snotty nose.
Sienna, please don’t die. Please live so that I can prove that I love you more than anything. I’ve learned my lesson. I swear it.