The Getaway: a dark and twisty psychological thriller novella (Dark and Twisty Psychological Thrillers) by Marnie Vinge

Author:Marnie Vinge [Vinge, Marnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yellow Truck Media, LLC
Published: 2023-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

There’s a great rumbling of thunder just overhead and then lightning strikes behind us. The entire kitchen and dining room is lit in an unearthly shade of blue. I watch as Danny’s pupils shrink before it, his face unchanged by fear if he feels any. There’s something else there, a hardness that I don’t think I’d picked up on before. Maybe it’s the lighting. Maybe it’s the conversation. Or maybe it’s realizing that he needs to get the power back on.

“Jesus Christ,” Jack says, jumping when the lightning strikes.

The room goes dark, minimal moonlight peeking through the heavy clouds overhead.

“It’s alright,” Danny says. “There’s a generator out back.”

I feel my heart rate recover, startled by the force of nature. I feel Bloodsmyth’s leg touch mine beneath the table and I freeze. He doesn’t move away, and neither do I.

We’re frozen there for a moment. Jack gets up to help Danny. The two of us remain, saying nothing, not moving an inch.

“You know,” Bloodsmyth says into the darkness. His voice breaks the silence and though he speaks softly, it sounds so much louder. “It was on a night like this that Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein.”

I smile in the darkness, the tension between us eased by his words. I laugh softly.

“I remember you telling me that,” I say. My voice comes out quietly, too. Like neither of us want to be caught together here in the darkness.

“You always were my favorite student, Nancy,” Bloodsmyth confesses.

His leg still touches mine. I detect something else in his words. A promise. I don’t dare speak, lest I break the spell.

“Glad you came tonight,” he says. “I didn’t know who would be here, other than Jack and Danny. Your father passed away. I’m sorry for that,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d be out here.”

“Here I am,” I say. “I can’t stay away from this place, even when I promise myself I’m not in California to dredge up bad memories.”

There’s a bitterness to the last of my sentence. A sense of disappointment with myself. I made that promise. Despite that, I came when Danny called. It was like a summoning. Something deep within me responded to his beckoning. Something wounded and unresolved. Something I couldn’t have said no to in a million years.

“Closure is important,” Bloodsmyth says. “Sometimes painful, always important. And not very often in life do we actually get it.”

I nod in the darkness. I know he’s right. It’s what I just experienced out here with the death of my father. So many things left unsaid between us. A sense that we’d had time to make our relationship right, snatched away from us in death’s talons.

“Still, I’m glad you’re here,” he says. He wraps an arm around me and gives my shoulders a squeeze. His hand lingers. The lights come back on, and Bloodsmyth quickly drops his arm from around me. He clears his throat, focusing once more on the cards in front of him.

Jack and Danny come back into the room.

We play several more hands and continue to drink into the night.

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