Read Online On Black Wings by Sylvia Storm - Free Book Online Page B

on his chest. “No, don’t go out! Just look.”
    The Tanner’s red minivan coasts to a stop across the street, its window open, Mr. Tanner sitting in the driver’s seat, his arm still out of the window, his body a solid pile of ash. His baseball cap falls through his head as it melts away in a cloud of soot, his death-like smile shattering in a clatter of bones from his teeth falling away.
    Just like I remember it.
    I feel the tears again. “People are dying! There’s something wrong with the sun, the ozone layer, something! Please listen to me and look!”
    Brad’s mouth is open, he is breathing short breaths, and his eyes are wide. “My God. Bill. Bill’s dead? My God.”
    He looks down at me, his face a mask of fear. “How did you know? How did you know?”
    “Brad. I love you. I don’t know what’s happening with me, it’s like I’m living a nightmare. I have these wings, I’m young again, and I’m reliving a lot in my life I wish I could have changed. I’m seeing other things too I can’t explain, places, dark places I know I have to go to. People are hunting me wherever I go.”
    We hear the back patio door slide open, and I bolt towards the back of the house as fast as I can, screaming at the top of my lungs. “No!”
    I’m too late.
    The future me and my two children are swirling away in a pile of ash on the back lawn, her cell phone hitting the ground, the bright cinders of the three of them blowing away in the wind.
    So that’s how I die.
    The cell phone is still on as it buries itself in ashes, saying, “Miss? Miss? Stay inside-”
    I’m on the floor again, collapsing in exhaustion and shock, my black wings flayed out across my living room.
    “Oh my God.” Brad walks in and collapses next to me in shock. He screams and howls a cry I never heard from him before. “No God no!”
    I’m shaking my head. I can’t believe I’d do this to myself. I’m so stupid. Brad buries his face on one of my wings on the floor, hunched over in agony, and sobbing uncontrollably.
    “No, God, no.”
    Now it’s his turn to cry.

CHAPTER XI:
    My Heart Left Before His
     
    He’s a hollow man.
    The ash continues to fall outside, piling up on the windowsill, people likely dying by the thousands or millions at the moment. Yet only one life means anything to me right now, Brad’s.
    He sits across the table from me, broken, his eyes gaunt, and his expression lost. He’s crying, tissues wadded up and strewn about, his hand on his forehead, while repeating the same words over and over again.
    “God, why God?”
    I can’t help to feel bad for the man I loved, even though I can’t love him, not like this. But I can’t help to love him as the man who I shared my life with, my soul-mate, and to watch him waste away tears my heart out.
    Again.
    Somehow I feel so jaded and hurt that I’m done crying.
    Forever.
    “Brad?” I speak, it’s so quiet that I don’t need to speak very loud. “Brad, please.”
    He looks up at me, eyes bloodshot, his face lost in the depths of sorrow. “Why do you look like my wife?”
    “I’m not your wife, not yet,” I say, reaching for his hand but he backs away, “I’m Jessica before me met, maybe just before. It’s hard for me to see you like this, I told myself not to go out there, to keep the kids inside, but she wouldn’t listen. I can’t control my own actions.”
    The realization hits me like a hammer. No, I’ve never been able to. I’m my own worst enemy.
    “You warned us, why?” His eyes slowly blink, staring at me. “How?”
    “Brad, maybe I’m an angel now, maybe that’s why I’m here. I died or something and now I’m doomed to wander the Earth and warn people about this.”
    I really don’t know, I’m guessing as much as he is.
    He doesn’t move a hair and keeps staring at me. “But you, you could walk outside. Why?”
    I rub my eyes. “I don’t know. I just found this out today. I know you can’t, and now I know the older me can’t. There was