Die by the Sword (An Owen Day Thriller) by Rachel Ford

Author:Rachel Ford [Ford, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Roughly an hour after he left the sheriff’s department, Owen arrived at his hotel. And after an extremely skeptical clerk, who made a point of wrinkling his nose several times, checked him in and handed over a keycard, he headed to the shower.

The stink of smoke seemed to have permeated every pore in his body. Owen used the entire complimentary mini soap provided, and then stood under the hot water.

And still, he smelled smoke as he dried himself.

He was too tired to worry about that, though. He’d been awake for over twenty-four hours now, and so despite being outside his regular schedule of nocturnal hours, he fell asleep quickly.

The dreams started shortly thereafter.

Fire. Death.

Carnage.

Sometimes he saw it all grainy and grayscale, like the videos had been. Sometimes it happened in full color, his imagination – his guilt – supplying the details that hadn’t really been there. Sometimes, he could hear the screams of the women and children, as fire consumed them, as their flesh melted off their bones. As they cursed him.

Tonight, Ezra and Kade faded in and out of his dreams, joining the others. Sometimes, the missiles hit them and their trailer in northern Montana. Sometimes, they were on the other side of the world, in the compound with the others.

He could hear them screaming along with the children.

Owen thrashed and tossed and turned, and woke halfway through the night covered in sweat, feeling more, not less, exhausted than before.

The screams still echoed in his thoughts as he blinked into the darkened room. The heat of the flames radiated out of his imagination.

With everything else on his mind, he’d forgotten to take his medicine before he went to bed.

Clutching the bedspread, focusing on the embroidered patterns, on the fibers beneath his fingers, he cursed himself. No wonder the dreams had come back. How could he have been so stupid?

“Breathe and focus on the present. On what you can see and feel.”

He did, forcing himself out of bed and to his bag. To his pills. He took them with a cup of water from the bathroom sink, and waited.

The voices and heat had disappeared, but he was far from okay yet. His body trembled with urges for which he had no outlet. Ancient, primitive urges. Survival urges. One part of his mind told him to run, and the other to fight.

But there was nowhere to go, and no one to fight.

So Owen focused on the room, on the sticky pleather of the armchair, on the dim yellow light and speckled ceiling overhead, on the dingy industrial carpet underfoot. He made himself breathe steadily, in and out, in and out.

And slowly, his adrenaline dropped. His heartrate returned to normal. The sense of agitation, of fear and fury, ebbed.

He didn’t sleep after that, not for a long time. The first rays of dawn light were already seeping under the curtain when he finally dozed, and he didn’t stay asleep long after that. Tramping feet and passing voices woke him.

He showered a second time and headed downstairs to the breakfast room.

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