Chapter 31
Sarah
The rain poured down around us, hitting the windshield and streaking down the glass like tears. Levi was gripping the steering wheel with all his might, his knuckles turning white from the exertion.
I had tried reasoning with him back in the office, explaining there was no way he would get away with any of this, that he would be found.
I had tried appealing to him as we climbed through the window and walked across the campus, promising I would come with him willingly and that I wanted to go with him, especially if it kept Fai safe.
“Levi?” I asked quietly. We had another ten minutes until Fai was supposed to be here. Ten minutes to get him to leave Fai alone. I needed a plan—any plan—but my mind was struggling to think clearly, my fight-or-flight response rearing its head.
Levi glanced at me quickly and then back at the road. “What?” His voice was clipped but not angry. He seemed more as if he were losing control… of me? Of the situation? I wasn’t sure.
“Why me?” I asked. “Why do you want me?”
He swallowed hard, glancing at me and then back at the road.
“You don’t remember me?” I racked my memories, trying to put it together, but finally shook my head. He sighed deeply. “I assumed you didn’t. We were just kids. It was in Montana, in a hospital there.”
I tried to remember, but I had only been to Montana twice before.
I had guest lectured a few years back, and the first time was in graduate school.
I was an intern for a local psychologist who was assisting on a case in Montana—a man who had murdered his own mother.
We were there to assist the prosecution in determining if he was fit to stand trial.
But that man couldn’t have been Levi; he was in his thirties nearly fifteen years ago.
“You didn’t notice me, but I noticed you,” Levi continued, his eyes glazing over as he reminisced. “When I saw you… I knew you were the one. But I was there for another decade.” He scoffed. “Court-ordered. Ridiculous.”
“Why did you wait five years, then, to find me again?” I asked.
Levi sighed. “I didn’t know your name, you see. It took me time to find the records I needed to find you.”
“Why go through Fai?”
“Because you loved him, and I wanted… no, I need you to love me,” he explained, his voice growing fervent—as if he were desperate for me to understand.
I shuddered at the thought, terrified of the lengths he was willing to go to make it a reality in his mind. “If you wanted me to love you, why did you pretend to be Gabriel? Why pretend to be Fai?”
“It was stupid…” he muttered under his breath and swallowed deeply before turning to me, his dark green eyes lacking any life. How had I not noticed it before? “If I could figure out what made you love him, I could use it to make you love me.”
“That’s why you invited us out there? To learn about him?” I asked.
Levi nodded. “It should have been simple. I spent a few days trying to understand him and what made him tick. I figured I could learn enough before Fai had an… accident. The bastard was faster than me,” he began muttering, his tone growing harsh and his grip tightening on the steering wheel once again. “The hike should have been his end…”
“You were going to kill him in Montana?” I asked, shocked.
Levi rolled his eyes. “Why would you have cared? It would have finally given us our chance—the one we deserved.”
“Why would I have cared? You were planning on killing my husband!” The words burst out of me. I could handle a lot… but I couldn’t handle the idea of losing Fai like that. Not after all we had gone through… he had gone through.
“He’s your ex-husband,” Levi seethed.
I shook my head. “He’s not. He’s my husband. He’s on his way now; he’ll prove it to you.”
“No!” Levi yelled, the sound reverberating through the small cabin. “I saw the divorce papers with my own eyes.”
“Those papers mean nothing. My soul—my heart—is irrevocably tied to him. Fai is my husband in my heart and mind. The paperwork means nothing,” I insisted and was met with a slap across my face.
The force took my breath for a moment. I cupped my cheek with a shaking hand and did my best to hold back any tears.
“Get out,” Levi instructed, reaching across me and pushing the door open.
I obliged, climbing out onto the bridge, with the sound of the river rushing below us.
Levi jumped out as well, his gun back in his hand and his eyes wide and crazed.
I was soaked in seconds as the rain fell heavy onto the pavement.
“What’s the plan?” I yelled over the sound of the river and the rain pounding us. “What are you going to do to Fai?”
Levi raised a brow. “That’s the thing—you told me exactly what I needed to do. You just didn’t realize.”
He reached into the bed of the truck, pulling back a tarp I hadn’t noticed before, and retrieved a bottle of whiskey.
“I thought about it… I thought I could be him. I tried to be him, but you wouldn’t accept it,” Levi continued, closing the distance between us and pressing the gun into my side. “And you’re right—he’ll never let us be. So I need him gone…”
“My friends won’t stop either; they’ll come after me, especially if you hurt him,” I tried to argue.
Levi clicked his tongue. “I thought about that, too. Those friends of yours have made it really hard to get close to you… but you see, they don’t fully trust your dear, sweet ex-husband.
Everyone is waiting for him to break again.
” Levi shook the bottle in his hands. “To turn to his old vices. So, they won’t be shocked when they find out he relapsed. ”
Bile climbed up my throat. I wanted to scream, to fight him, or do anything to keep him from hurting Fai, but I never got the chance. Right on time, a truck came barreling toward us from the distance.
That damned, stupid man pulled up in Goldie’s truck, the tires screeching to a stop.
The smell of burning rubber wafted for just a moment before being completely washed away by the rain.
Fai jumped out of the truck, leaving the door open and the engine running.
The headlights spotlighted Levi and me as Fai lunged forward—only to be halted mid-stride.
The barrel of Levi’s gun was suddenly leveled at his chest, freezing him in place.
“Stop!” Levi screeched, his frame vibrating with tension as he wrenched my arm to keep me pinned to his side.
Fai listened to the demand immediately, raising his hands slowly.
Water fell down his cheeks, the drops resembling tears as they passed his jawline and ran down his neck.
His hair was a sopping mess, but his brown eyes were the only warmth on the gloomy street.
Those eyes were trained on mine; he didn’t spare Levi a single glance.
Fai took one steady breath, and then another, and nodded to me softly. He was telling me it would be okay, but I couldn’t see a way for us to all make it off this bridge—not alive, not together, and not with Levi’s plan.
Levi’s grip loosened on me slightly, his focus now trained on Fai. “Don’t come closer.”
“I’m not,” Fai reasoned. “I’ll stay right here, but you need to let her go.”
Levi sneered. “You think I’m stupid? The second I let her go—the second I take my focus from her—she’ll be gone.”
“I won’t,” I tried to insist, but we all knew I was full of shit.
“Sarah, be a dear and hand your ex-husband the bottle?” Levi thrust the bottle of whiskey into my hands and pushed me with the butt of the gun toward Fai.
I shook my head, wanting to do anything but that, but Fai shocked me. His hand was outstretched as he motioned me closer. “It’s okay, just listen to him.”
I stared at him in surprise but closed the distance, handing him the bottle. I wanted to stay by him, away from Levi, but I was yanked back by my arm, feeling the gun shoved into my side yet again.
Fai raised the bottle toward Levi. “What’s this for?”
Levi laughed—the kind that sent chills down your spine and worry through your heart. “How do you feel about one final drink before a swim?”
Fai shook his head immediately. “No.”
“It’s funny you think you have a choice,” Levi sneered. “Now, before you got here, Sarah and I were having quite the discussion. You see… she was right that you would never stop looking for her, and if I wanted her—and I do—that just wouldn’t work.”
“You’ll have to kill me, then,” Fai insisted. “Because you’re right. I’ll never give up on her.”
Levi’s smirk sharpened. “Exactly what I was thinking. But you see… her friends wouldn’t allow it.
Your former friends,” he added, his voice curling around the word with deliberate malice.
“So, it got me wondering… what would it take to make them let her go? That’s when I realized… you both have to die.”
Fai’s eyes morphed into a murderous glare. “You touch her and I’ll fucking kill you,” he growled.
Levi laughed again. “Don’t you worry. She won’t die.
They’ll just believe that. They only need your body.
See… I have your truck. Got it back from the police station.
I have the perfect note written. It’s very ‘woe is me,’ all about losing Sarah and how you’d rather be gone than not have her, but you’d rather her be gone, too. Blah, blah, blah.”
My stomach dropped, my heart felt as though it stopped.
He was going to kill Fai and make it seem like a murder-suicide.
The pieces slammed together all at once, the realization hitting with such force it left me reeling, my footing unsteady as I struggled to grasp how to stop what he’d already set in motion.
“No one would believe that I hurt her,” Fai argued.
“Maybe not this version of you… but do you think they feel the same way about ‘drunk you’? The man who hurt them? Lied to them? Hurt Sarah? Lied to Sarah?”
I could see Fai’s resolve waver. Levi had found his weak point, and we all knew it.
“Don’t listen to him!” I yelled, but Levi shut me up, clamping his hand over my mouth and pulling me to him so my back was against his chest, his other hand still holding the gun to my side.
“Bottoms up!” Levi called. “We need your body to prove the note. Sarah let me know you couldn’t swim, so it should be a quick end for you.”
I kicked myself for all I had shared with Levi. I had thought I was helping the supposed brothers bond, but instead gave the ammunition and fuel to end Fai.
Fai closed his eyes, and when they opened, I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, and I tried. I fought against Levi—against his hold—but couldn’t get away. Fai’s gaze was defeated. He stared at the bottle and then at me, his eyes full of apology.
I watched him crack the seal of the bottle, and I closed my eyes. I squeezed them shut, refusing to watch Fai lose the one thing he had fought so hard for—to lose the battle he had been fighting his entire life.
I waited, what was only a second felt like a lifetime, but I heard nothing else. I opened one eye, then the other, to see Fai still staring at the bottle, but he hadn’t moved.
“What are you waiting for?” Levi taunted, his tone growing impatient. “We don’t have all day. Drink up.”
Fai’s eyes met mine as he spoke. “No.”
Levi’s grip on me tightened—his body vibrating. “‘No’ is not an option. Drink it, or I'll shoot her.”
“I said, ‘no.’” Fai spoke again, his hands lowering for the first time. He wouldn't be surrendering like this. Never again. He was taking a risk, praying that Levi wouldn’t hurt me, and I was so damn grateful he took that risk.
Levi, however, wasn’t. He threw me to the ground—my side colliding with the wet asphalt—as he stalked toward Fai, his gun raised.
“Damn it!” Levi screamed, pushing the gun against Fai’s forehead. “I said drink!”
The world stopped.
Time ceased to exist.
My reality moved in slow motion. Fai looked past Levi’s shoulder to me, his eyes meeting mine once again. The rain soaked every part of his body as the crash of thunder in the distance roared through the canyon. He was weighing his choices.
There wasn’t a world in his mind where he made it out alive. Either he would be shot now, point-blank, or he would give in to Levi, taking a drink and losing more than just his life.
Fai was accepting his death.
He smiled at me. It was soft, and full of more love than any words could be. I could see the years of shared memories dancing through his eyes. He took one breath, and then another, before closing his eyes.
I braced for the gunshot, but Fai, as always, did the unexpected.
He had accepted his death, but he refused to leave me alone with Levi.
He refused to leave this world without knowing I was safe.
After dropping the bottle, he grasped Levi’s shoulder and threw his own body hard over the railing of the bridge, taking Levi with him.
They went over the edge together, their bodies tangling as they vanished beyond the bridge and into the river below.
I ran—a scream tearing from my throat—just in time to see them strike the water, then disappear, dragged under by the relentless current.
The deep blue swallowed them whole, and with it, everything that mattered to me.
“N-no,” I muttered, looking around desperately for help—but I was alone. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “No,” I said aloud, pulling off one shoe, and then the other, my eyes fixed on what I thought was Fai’s body in the distance.
If the fall didn’t kill him, if the temperature didn’t, it would be the sweeping currents. He couldn’t battle against them, not alone.
I stepped onto the railing. One foot and then another, climbing over the side, the cool metal hitting my back. I took one deep breath—letting it out slowly—and then another. I let the air fill my lungs, and I held it.
I held it while I let go of the bridge. While I jumped.