Drowning to Breathe
Read Drowning to Breathe Online
Authors: A. L. Jackson
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Coming of Age, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Bleeding Stars, #Book Two
Drowning to Breathe
Copyright © 2015 A.L. Jackson Books Inc.
First Edition
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.
A.L. Jackson
Cover Design by
Mae I Design
Editing by
Making Manuscripts
Formatting by
Champagne Formats
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-938404-90-0
Table of Contents
More from A.L. Jackson
Bleeding Stars
A Stone in the Sea
The Regret Series
Lost to You
Take This Regret
If Forever Comes
The Closer to You Series
Come to Me Quietly
Come to Me Softly
Come to Me Recklessly
Stand-Alone Novels
Pulled
When We Collide
More Bleeding Stars Novels Coming Soon
Where Lightning Strikes
Through the Storm
Embers and Ash
Whispers in Winter
Also Coming Soon from A.L. Jackson
Hollywood Chronicles
, a collaboration with
USA Today
Bestselling Author, Rebecca Shea
I WEPT TOWARD THE SKY.
Hemorrhaging.
Crumbling.
Breaking.
“No…Kallie…Kallie!”
Sebastian’s arms tightened around me as the rain began to pour from above.
A torrent of pain splintered through my chest. As if it were cracking my ribs open wide, every hope I’d allowed myself to have spilling free.
Wind whipped through, like a deranged madness that swept along the ground, chasing after the taillights that blinked out at the end of the street.
Agony.
Agony.
Agony.
“No…please…how could I allow this to happen? Please…Kallie. My baby. My baby. He can’t have her. I won’t let him have her.”
“Shh…” I felt his breath in my hair, the soft kiss at the top of my head. “We will get her back…I promise you, if it’s the last thing I do, we will get her back.”
“She’s gone,” I whimpered.
As the sick realization leached into my bones, I slumped into his hold.
She’s gone.
This…this was my penance. The payment for my sins.
Punishment for every naive choice I had made.
For every deceit I had blindly swallowed.
For every lie that had fallen from my lips.
But every one of them I’d told for her.
To keep her safe.
To allow us a life he would never let us live.
But we can run as hard and as fast as we want, and until we put our pasts to rest, they will always catch up to us.
Now mine had us in its grip.
LIGHTNING FLASHED, AND THE
heavens wept their torment from above. A furious fall of rain hammered into my body as harsh gusts blew through the downpour.
A frenzy of earth and wind and sky.
My entire being strained against it. I clenched my jaw as fat rivulets of water gathered in my hair and streamed down my bare chest and back to soak my jeans.
Two feet ahead, Shea stood in front of me. Facing away. Her head drooped between her shaking shoulders. My girl, bent in half, and broken in two. All that blonde drenched, like a swilling river overflowing with pain.
Around us, chaos howled like a demon.
A hurricane.
A fucking devastating storm.
Dark.
Dark.
Dark.
For once, I saw none of her light.
Rage blistered across the surface of my skin. The pain and fear I had for Kallie ate me alive. That rage headed south and twisted through my stomach, inciting the anger of betrayal throbbing from within.
“Who the fuck are you?” It scraped from my throat, low and bitter and confused.
It felt like an eternity passed before she slowly turned around. That face. That fucking gorgeous face I couldn’t erase from my mind looked back on me with misery, and my chest felt like it just might cave.
“I’m just Shea,” she choked out and hugged herself tighter, going back to the same thing she’d told me on the beach two days ago.
I’m just Shea
. Three little words that should mean nothin’. But they’d sent a ripple of warning through me then, my gut telling me whatever had brought on her discomfort was caused by whoever the fuck had fathered Kallie.
Of course, at that time, I’d been under the very misguided impression he was dead—whoever the piece of shit she’d chosen to keep a secret happened to be.
Now I could only wish he was.
Martin Jennings.
My skin crawled and my teeth ground with the accusation. “You lied to me.”
A sob tore through her. The tortured sound ripped through my insides. “Yes.”
I opened my mouth to make more accusations when I felt the figure approaching from behind.
“Shea,” she whimpered over the driving rain. April, Shea’s best friend, slowly edged down the first porch step, hanging on to the wooden rail as if she might fall to her knees.
More torment made a pass through Shea’s expression. “He took her.”
Every fear Shea’d ever had was wound up in the statement. I heard it. Fucking
felt
it.
“He took her,” she said again, only this time she was begging, looking to April as if she might have the power to wipe it away.
Holy shit.
April knew.
Of course she did.
I felt like I’d been sucker punched.
Because that’s exactly what I was.
A sucker.
A fool because I’d just let myself go…let go of all my control and gave it to this girl.
The girl I’d trusted with my fucking life because I’d wanted to give her that, too.
I felt like the brunt of a cruel, sick joke. An outsider looking in on Shea’s dirty little secret. A secret kept from me when I was the one supposed to hold all her truths.
But this girl had just given me lies.
“We’ll…we’re going to get her back,” April whispered almost maniacally, her dark brown eyes wide and scared.
“He took her.” This time the words on Shea’s tongue sounded foreign. Faraway. I saw the moment the reality crashed down on her and her knees went weak.
I rushed forward and scooped her into my arms just before she hit the ground. There was nothing I could do but pull her to me. Hold her. Couldn’t stop the way my nose went into her hair or the way my mouth pressed to her temple. “I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you.
Did I?
She buried her face in my chest, her arms clinging to my neck as if I could be her rock. “He took her, Sebastian. He
took
her.”
Her breath seeped all over me. Plea after plea. Like she was asking me to make it better.
Asking me to be a part of it now.
I felt torn in a million directions. Shredded. My love for this girl, the devotion that pumped through me with every violent beat of my heart, at all-out war with the voice that kept whispering I didn’t know her at all.
In what seemed like shock, I carried Shea up the walk and started to climb the porch steps. I twisted sideways to get by April who still clung to the railing. She seemed to be frozen in her own shock.
Wood creaked beneath my bare feet as I walked across the porch. I didn’t stop when I hit the polished hardwood floors inside. I headed for the staircase.
I gulped over visions of the nightmare that had just transpired here—The little girl standing at the top of the landing whispering for her mommy, having no clue how her world was about to be crushed.
As soon as I crossed the exact spot where Kallie had stood, Shea yelped as if she were in physical pain.
“Kallie.” Her gasped name hit the air like grief.
I gritted my teeth and pulled her a little closer. “I know, baby, I know.”