This is the first three or so pages of Dying Embers - a 78,000 word suspense with romantic elements. Hope you enjoy it. =o)
Dying Embers
As she approached
the twisted Mercedes’ wreckage, its cracked side mirror winked at her as if
they shared some unspeakable secret. The
wind blowing through her mousy-brown hair made the leaves of the grand old
trees waver and the moonlight dance across the pine straw. All around her whispered the soft hush of the
forest and faint noises from the road.
So peaceful. She could almost
forget what she’d done, if not for the sickly, wet gurgle.
Standing beneath a
tree a few yards above, she couldn’t tell if the sound emanated from the vital
fluids dripping out of the engine, or from her husband and his mistress. Maybe it was the tree as its sap oozed from a
wide gash where the metal had ripped away the bark. The car was dead. The other three would die soon enough.
She only felt
sorry for the tree.
Her intention had
only been to send them down the embankment to the gully below. If she’d known a tree would stop them partway
down, she would’ve planned the whole thing better. If she’d planned the thing at all, this
would’ve gone so much smoother.
Whatever Will had
done, the tree didn’t deserve to pay for it.
“Hello?” a harsh
voice rasped in the night air. It was
filled with pain and the wet sound of too much spit or too much blood. The noise was so soft anyone else wouldn’t
have been able to tell who survived the impact, but she knew the cadence deep
inside her, even before her brain had time to register it consciously.
“Hello, Will,” she
whispered back. With a slow
deliberateness, she nudged a rock down the steep hillside. It bounced off one of its many brethren with
a loud clack, and her smile widened.
Except for the poor tree, she picked the perfect spot.
“Hello?” he said
louder, his terror filling the air and echoing off the jagged crags. “Is someone there?”
Her lips curled
into a sneer as she bent to pick up a rock.
With a deftness born of many summer softball games, she tested the
weight of it in her hand and then hurled it against the one unbroken pane of
glass left.
The sound of its
shattering came only an instant before Will screamed like a little girl. Or maybe it was his cheap hussy.
If she was lucky,
they were both alive. Their heartbeats
would mean her plan hadn’t completely failed after all. Oh, she wanted them dead, but not too
quickly. If she was going to spend the
rest of her life suffering from their betrayal, the least they could do was
spend a little time suffering themselves.
Above them on the
road, a semi chugged its way up the hill and she froze. Everything would be ruined if they were
discovered now. Truck drivers could see
too much from their perches, and she needed time for her tormentors to
die. In the morning, the skid marks
would be visible on the asphalt, or the sun would glint off the car’s mirrors,
and they would be found.
Too late.
“Whoever you are,
please help us. My wife is bleeding
badly, and she’s having trouble breathing.”
The smile left her
face. His wife? His wife? So the lies were to continue even unto
death. Bastard.
“She’s not your
wife,” she said into the darkness, each word drawn from her like splinters from
a stake in her heart. Step by merciless
step, she crept toward the vehicle; each one bringing her closer to her
goal.
“She never was
your wife.” With each step, another
millimeter of her perfect white teeth glowed in the moonlight. She was snarling by the time she slid the
last few feet.
“And she never
will be.” When she reached the back
bumper, loose rocks slid beneath her feet, lurching her against the trunk. The car wobbled precariously.
Good. Better than she hoped for, actually. If the car tumbled into the ravine, days could
pass before anyone found the bodies.
“Emma?” her
husband called with a new kind of fear soaking through his tone. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Will. I’m here.”
Even as she spoke the words, though, she knew Emma Sweet was gone
forever—swallowed by the gaping hole inside her. For more than a decade, Will had been her
world, and like an asteroid’s impact, this event had left her burnt and
lifeless.
“Go get help.” His command shook her out of her misery. He had no right to boss her around
anymore. Still, her hand closed around
the phone in her pocket. It was within
her power to save him. He’d be grateful
for his life…
But it wasn’t just
his life hanging by her will.
“For you?” she
said sweetly, and then let her words saturate with the hate she was now so full
of. “Or for her?”
“For both of us. Please, Emma.”
“I don’t think
so.”
“Please. I know what you’re thinking, but I can explain.”
“I don’t think
so,” she said again. The cold sound of
her words almost shocked her back to sanity.
She was the woman everyone loved and admired. Emma Sweet wasn’t just a name; it was a
persona she’d wrapped around herself for years.
Anyone who knew her would insist she couldn’t hurt a fly…
