The Vacant Chair by Kaylea Cross

Author:Kaylea Cross [Cross, Kaylea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 0991905016
Amazon: B00CKBJZT4
Publisher: Kaylea Cross
Published: 2013-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Waking up the next morning was the hardest thing Justin had ever done. He opened his eyes to find the unfamiliar scenery rolling like a green carpet outside the windows of the boxcar he occupied. In an instant, he remembered why he was there. Accompanying his brother’s body back to Michigan for burial.

For a moment, time stood still as he struggled to breathe. He held Mitch’s hat in his clenched hands, the pain more than he could bear. Fragmented images swept past him, of screaming shells, Mitch’s agonized expression, the feel of him convulsing in his arms in the throes of death.

Angry tears pricked his eyes and he plunged shaking fingers into his hair. The pressure in his chest was suffocating, grief crashing over him in relentless, pounding waves. Mitch’s pleading voice echoed in his head.

Justin…help me…

He couldn’t bear knowing he would carry that anguished sound of his brother’s voice inside him forever. Sobs clawed at him. He fought them back, along with the urge to smash everything in that boxcar to vent his fury, his hopelessness. Mitch was gone. Never coming back.

Justin doubled over, covering his face with his hands as the tears came, scalding in their agony. I can’t take this. The thought was loud in his head. Clear.

He gagged, choking on the bile that rose in his throat. He wanted to scream from the pain, his heart writhing in agony. The agony drained away all too soon, replaced by empty despair. With an exhausted sigh, he slumped against the seat and closed his eyes, hoping for the oblivion of sleep.

Maybe sleep would obliterate the smell of the blood and those hideous, gasping breaths.

It wasn’t Mitch’s face he saw burned on the inside of his eyelids, though. It was Brianna’s. A different kind of grief blasted through him.

In desperate need of distraction, he conjured up memories of her at the hospital when she had changed his bandages. Her smile, the feel of her hands stroking his hair, the softness of her lips and the reassuring comfort of her embrace. He ached with the need to see her again, just to have her arms around him. She would understand the suffocating torment inside him and somehow help dull the pain.

But he hadn’t heard a word from her in so long and had no idea where she was. If something had happened to her too—

No, he wouldn’t even allow himself to think it. He closed his eyes as another wave of pain hit him. Brianna, where are you? He needed her more than ever.

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