Lucifer Travels-Book #1 in the suspense, mystery thriller Page 11

There are moments in your life—everyone’s life—you wish you could get back, just for a second. I just want a second, only a second. It’s funny how life works. I mean, look at the irony of it all. A man can live for eighty years and in all that time, in all those triumphs and disappointments, was the second that created the path to it all. Imagine the wonders a man could do with one second. Imagine all the lives that could’ve been changed, or the souls that could’ve been saved in just one second. We could take a second to say goodbye or I’m sorry, or take a second to say no. I should’ve said no. Samantha wanted to return home to get a few clothes and some trinkets with sentimental value. I knew we shouldn’t have. Everyone knew we stayed in the house with all the fancy cars out front. Donnie made sure of that. But she had to go back. As always, I had to follow right behind her.

  We made it to our home, and as the doors opened, all the memories of yesterday came rushing back. The realization of what had happened stung as we both knew it would.

  Samantha hurried to her room. With emotions flowing I stepped onto that old familiar wooden floor, reminiscing about all memories we created there along with all the heartache we shared together.

  But there wasn’t a damn thing on this earth that has ever lasted. I remember watching Samantha throw everything in sight into those bags. She instructed me to do so as well. But I declined. There was nothing from that house that I wanted to carry along with me anymore. Every item I’d carry would hold a memory of the heart we shared coupled with the knife that pierced it. It would hold all the things I wanted to forget.

  As I stood letting my mind drift to distant places, Samantha came into the living room. “Let’s go home.”

  We walked toward the front door, carrying years of clothes in one little bag. A light suddenly shined through the living room windows. Samantha looked at me and I looked back at her. I ran and peeked through the blinds. A fleet of cars had pulled in front of our house. I turned to Samantha. She could see it in my face. I didn’t even have to say it. Her bags dropped from her hands onto the floor.

  Multiple lights shone through the house. We were surrounded. For the first time, we stopped running. I reached for my pistol. But as I touched it, Samantha placed her hand on my arm. “No.”

  ‘What are you doing?” I asked.

  “There’s no way we’re shooting our way out of here.”

  “What? You want us to just die?”

  “No. I want you to live.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Samantha placed her hand on my face; her eyes became watery. “You have sacrificed everything for me. You have done so much, but you don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what, Samantha?!”

  “You don’t have to do this with me. I don’t deserve it.”

  “NO NO NO! I love you, Samantha.”

  Samantha lifted her head as tears gushed to the floor and stared directly into my eyes. “I don’t love you.”

  I was stunned. Even after Donnie was gone, she still didn’t want me. It felt as if a train had trampled repeatedly over my soul and I had no angel to guard me from it.

  She grabbed my hand and led me to our living room fireplace.

  “Stay here. When they’re gone, you get as far away from this place as possible.”

  I remember wanting to say so many things. But my mouth wouldn’t work. I just went along with whatever she said like I always did. Maybe because, at that point, I felt dead inside.

  Once I crawled into the fireplace, she covered it with a dark screen similar to the one in this confessional. But unlike here, I could see from the inside. I watched for the second time as she unbuttoned her clothes and stripped completely naked. She stood against the living room wall holding a gun behind her back, Mantranga’s henchmen kicked in our door, carrying enough weapons to invade a small country. They surrounded her. She showed no sign of fear. She just smiled.

  “Where’s your other friend?” one of the men asked.

  “He’s here,” she said.

  “Where?”

  Samantha smiled again and looked away from the guards—toward the fireplace. I looked at her, wondering if she could see me crying.

  The man grabbed her face. “Where the fuck is he?”

  Tears trickled from her eyes as she stared at me through the dark screen. The man slammed her head against the wall and demanded an answer. She finally mumbled two words that I never wanted to hear her say. “Goodbye, Danny.”

  “What did you say?”

  Samantha gazed at the man. “I know where he is.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s here.” She revealed the gun from behind her back and shot the man in the face. As the man fell, she in turn, aimed at them all, shooting two more before they eventually gunned her down.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  It was if a small war was taking place right in our living room. When it was over, her body rested against the wall, riddled with holes both big and small while her eyes lay open.

  That night, Mantranga’s men searched everywhere. They even waited in the house several days after, hoping I’d come home. They had no clue that I was right under their noses.

  My pants damped and sticky from urine and feces. The smell entrenched in my nostrils. I remember wanting to cough because some of the dust settled in my mouth. As the hours waned, so did my hope. Every day was longer than the one before.

  After about two weeks, I overheard one of Mantranga’s henchmen saying that I had left town. Soon, they left themselves, leaving behind death and the pain that comes along with it.

  They walked out of that house as if nothing had happened. The way they talked and joked was as if they didn’t just butcher that poor girl. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s friend, someone’s lover. How is it possible for Him to allow such mayhem, such pain and sorrow?

  “Who?” asks the priest.

  “God. I’m talking about God.”

  The priest provides no answers. Just silence.

  So Daniel weeps right in the confessional. And the priest allows him to do so, uninterrupted. He does this for about ten minutes. When the tears finally stop, the priest interjects once again, pushing the conversation forward. “How did you get out of the city?”

  “I waited in the fireplace for a couple of days after they left. I wasn’t sure if they would come back or not. Lucky for me, they didn’t. There was, of course, no sign of the money. The bags had been removed from the house. On the floor just lay misery. I ran into Donnie’s old room, grabbed a set of keys to one of his cars, and became nothing but a ghost to New Orleans.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Home. I went home.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  God’s Storm