Dying for Rain Read online

  Dying

  for Rain

  BB EASTON

  Copyright © 2019 by BB Easton

  Published by Art by Easton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-7327007-6-5

  e-book ISBN: 978-1-7327007-7-2

  Cover Design by BB Easton

  Cover Photographs licensed by Adobe Stock

  Content Editing by Traci Finlay and Karla Nellenbach

  Copyediting by Jovana Shirley of Unforeseen Editing

  and Ellie McLove of My Brother’s Editor

  Formatting by Jovana Shirley of Unforeseen Editing

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. While several locations in the book are based on real places in and around Atlanta, Georgia, the events that take place there, characters portrayed as employees, and even the interior layout and decor are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks, and word marks mentioned in this book.

  This book is dedicated to anyone who’s ever had to fight for their own happiness.

  Especially me.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  SKIN: Chapter One

  Playlist

  Books by BB Easton

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dying for Rain Synopsis

  What could be worse than knowing the exact day the world is going to end?

  Waking up to find out that it didn’t.

  The post–April 23 world is a lawless, senseless, ruthless place, but it’s not loveless. At least, not for Rain and Wes.

  But when the government begins holding daily televised executions as a demonstration of their power, that love is put to the ultimate test.

  Will Rain sacrifice one life to save the others?

  Or sacrifice the others to save the one?

  May 5

  Rain

  It’s amazing how your whole life can change in an instant. How forces beyond your control can just reach out and rip entire chunks of your life away from you—the best chunks, the biggest chunks—without so much as a please or a thank you. And those forces always wait until your guard is down. They want to hear you exhale, to sigh in quiet contentment, before they strike.

  I was in my tree house after sundown, exhaling a calming stream of smoke from one of my daddy’s cigarettes, when three shotgun blasts made me an orphan.

  I was creeping down the highway on the back of Wes’s motorcycle, relieved that we’d survived April 23 and excited about what we might find outside of Franklin Springs, when an eighteen-wheeler exploded and almost killed my best friend, Quint.

  I was wrapped in the safety of a dark, abandoned bookstore, sleeping peacefully after making love to Wes, when he ripped himself out of my life without so much as a goodbye.

  And I’m in the safety of Wes’s arms now, in the living room of my childhood home, surrounded by a newly polished hardwood floor and freshly painted walls, when I feel myself exhale again.

  Watch my fear flutter to the floor like a silk robe.

  Smile as hope and peace and gratitude tickle my flushed skin and whisper promises in my ear.

  Wes wraps my thighs around his waist and kisses that smile away—feverishly, impatiently. As if he has more love to give me than time.

  I sigh into his mouth, and three knocks on the door immediately signal my mistake. I let my guard down again, and now, the forces have come to take the only good thing I have left.

  My eyes slam open, and Wes grabs my face.

  “Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

  “What’s gonna be okay? What’s happening, Wes?”

  Bang, bang, bang!

  “Georgia State PD. Open up!”

  I shriek and cover my mouth with my hands. My stupid, sighing mouth.

  “We have the premises surrounded! Open up!”

  “Oh my God!” I search Wes’s face for answers, search the room for a place to hide.

  “They’re not here for you.” He shushes me, cupping my cheek in his warm, rough hand. “You did nothing wrong, okay? Just promise me you’ll stay here. You’re safe here.”

  “What’s happening, Wes?” My voice goes shrill as the banging gets louder.

  “It’s open!” Wes yells, holding my stare as the door behind me—the brand-new country-blue door that he installed while he was away—flies open.

  “That’s him,” a voice I’ve known—a voice I’ve trusted—my entire life snarls from the doorway. “That’s the man who procured the antibiotics.”

  I spin around as my mouth falls open, shock and betrayal slicing me from back to front as I turn. “Mrs. Renshaw! What are you doing?”

  I block Wes with my body as my eyes dart from Carter’s mom to the massive police officer standing next to her. Rage and hurt and a desperate kind of fear surge through me, making my movements jerky and forcing words out of my mouth.

  “It was me!” I scream. “Take me! I gave Quint the antibiotics! Not Wes!”

  The cop flashes Mrs. Renshaw a questioning look as Wes calmly walks around my outstretched arms and kneels before me in the middle of my living room. My fingers weave through his hair, pulling it away from his face as tears blur my vision.

  “No …” I whisper.

  “It was me. I saved Quinton Jones’s life,” Wes announces without taking his eyes off me. “And even if it wasn’t, you can’t execute her …”

  I shake my head down at him, pleading with him to do something.

  And he does. He presses a single kiss to my belly and smiles up at me, a mixture of pride and heartbreak carved into his beautiful features.

  “She’s pregnant.”

  Those words bounce off my brain, heard but rejected, as the cop yanks Wes off the ground by his arm.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you—”

  “No!” I scream, lunging for Wes. I grab his blue Hawaiian shirt with both hands as the meathead standing behind him clasps a pair of metal handcuffs around his innocent wrists.

  He might as well be tightening a noose around his neck.

  “Stop it! You’re killing him!” I shout.

  “You will be given an audience with the governor within seventy-two hours—at which point, you may defend yourself against the charges being brought against you.”

  I glance up at Wes’s face, expecting to find panic mirroring my own, but for once, his pale mossy eyes aren’t analyzing or angry or guarded or cold. They’re just sad.

  Sad and so, so sorry.

  “Eyewitness testimony and evidence collected at the scene of the crime will be
taken into consideration,” the officer drones on, ignoring me as he continues his speech, but Mrs. Renshaw gives me her full attention.

  “Rainbow, let go!” she hisses, taking a step toward me. “This man is a danger to everyone in the community. One day, you’ll see—”

  “You’re killing him!” I scream again, this time directing my rage at the woman standing next to the officer. I’ve never wanted to hit anyone so badly in my life, but my hands won’t let go of Wes.

  I can’t let go of Wes.

  Instead, I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bury my face in his chest, and scream directly into the thick flesh and thin cotton separating me from his heart.

  How many beats does it have left?

  How many would it have had if he’d never met me?

  Wes presses his lips to the top of my head as my lungs finally run out of air, and it breaks me all the way.

  Because I know this kiss. I know all of his kisses.

  Wes is trying to comfort me.

  But who’s going to comfort him?

  “Ramirez? You need backup?” a gruff voice calls from my open doorway.

  “Yeah. Looks like we got a stage five clinger.”

  “Ma’am,” the second officer snaps, “I’m gonna need you to let go of the suspect and step aside.”

  I hear the order, but I don’t look up or even acknowledge it. It doesn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t let go of Wesson Patrick Parker if I tried.

  And I’ve been trying for weeks.

  “Ma’am, this is your final warning. I will not ask you again. Let go of the suspect and put your hands on your head.”

  “Rainbow! Let go!” Mrs. Renshaw yells.

  “Let go, baby,” Wes whispers into my hair. “I love you so fucking much. Just do what they say, okay?”

  But I can’t. His shirt is so soft. His chest, so warm. His heart, so steady and strong where it pounds against my cheek. I clutch his shoulders tighter and stifle a sob as I press up onto my toes and kiss his worried mouth. Wes’s bottom lip pulls free from his teeth just before it collides with mine. Then, he stills, holding the moment along with his breath.

  He doesn’t kiss me like our time is running out.

  He kisses me like it’s already up.

  And he’s right. Because before I have a chance to whisper that I love him too—before I can say goodbye to the man who taught me how to live—fifty thousand volts of electricity say it for me, seizing my muscles and bringing me to my knees.

  Wes

  The feeling of Rain’s body seizing against mine, the helplessness of watching her tumble to the floor at my feet—my handcuffed arms unable to catch her convulsing body—it destroys whatever’s left of me.

  As the officer drags me toward the front door, I feel my soul, my heart, my fucking will to live disappearing with every step I take. They don’t belong to me anymore. Honestly, they never did. They belong to the little black-haired rag doll twitching on the floor back there.

  By the time that asshole shoves me down the front steps, the crushing pressure in my chest is reduced to a hollow ache—just phantom pains from my amputated heart. By the time we get to his pig mobile, I hardly remember having feelings at all. And by the time he shoves me inside and slams the door, I’ve gone completely … fucking … numb.

  I was never meant to get the girl. To have the happily ever after. That’s not how my world works, and this shit right here is proof. Rain has shelter, a means of self-defense, and money to get supplies. There’s nothing left for me to do. My girl—and my kid, if my suspicions are right—are going to have as good a life as anyone could hope for post–April 23.

  And me?

  In a few days, I’ll be fucking fertilizer, and I won’t have to feel this shit at all.

  Rain

  “Sweetheart, I did you a favor. I did all of us a favor. One day, you’ll see.

  “Are you really expecting, dear? How long has it been since you got your cycle?

  “A baby! Oh my goodness. What a blessing!

  “Don’t you worry. Mama Renshaw’s gonna help you every step of the way. And Carter—oh, he’s gonna be such a good daddy.

  “I’m gonna be a grandma!

  “Sit up, child. I got you some water.”

  When I don’t comply, Mrs. Renshaw cuts the happy rambling and switches into high school administrator mode. “Rainbow, sit up,” she hisses, snapping her fingers at me. “Don’t be so dramatic. I know you think you loved that man, but in time, you’ll realize that you only got attached to him because you’d just lost your folks. He was a monster, dear. You saw what he did to my sweet Carter. We’re all safer with him gone.”

  “You’re the monster.” The words aren’t much louder than a whisper as they leak out of my parted lips and dribble down my cheek onto the hardwood floor.

  “Excuse me?”

  I swallow, tasting blood and feeling pulses of pain radiating from one side of my tongue. I must have bitten it during the tasing.

  “You’re the monster,” I repeat, clearing my throat.

  I don’t open my eyes. Don’t lift my head. I’m in the same sloppy fetal position I ended up in after the volts hit me, and I don’t plan on moving. Ever.

  A new pain, deep and dull, throbs in my lower back, right where Wes tucked his gun into my waistband before the cops showed up.

  I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and silently thank him for this last gift.

  “Rainbow, I know you’re upset, but when you’re feeling better—”

  “I will never feel better.”

  And as soon as you leave, I’m gonna put a bullet in my head to match the one you just gave Wes.

  “I remember feeling that way too, when I was expecting Sophie. I thought I’d never feel better. But after the first trimester, you’ll get your spark back.”

  I hear metal scraping wood just a few feet away from my head and realize that Mrs. Renshaw must be picking up the key that I dropped. The one Wes placed in my palm right after we got here. A few minutes—that’s all it took for this woman to rip my future away from me. A few minutes is all it ever takes.

  “Is that my front door? It is, isn’t it? Goodness gracious! If that ain’t a sign from God, I don’t know what is. It’s like he’s sayin’, Welcome home, Agnes!” Mrs. Renshaw’s voice cracks, and she sniffles back a sob.

  “We’re gon’ be all right, baby girl.” Her weathered hand pats my exposed shoulder. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

  “Get out,” I manage to rasp even though my lungs feel like they’re going to collapse under the weight of my despair.

  “You’re right. I should go. You probably want some alone time. I’ll be back to check on you a little later, dear. Be sure to drink your water.”

  Just as I hear her footsteps retreat toward the door, they stop a moment later and return to my side twice as fast as they left. “Oh, I almost forgot …”

  The back of my tank top lifts, and the revolver Wes tucked into my waistband is jerked free. I hear the click, spin, clack of Mrs. Renshaw checking the barrel for bullets on her way out the door.

  Then, I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and sob myself unconscious.

  No dreams come to distract me from my thoughts of death. No visions of my parents or Wes arrive to soothe me. When I wake up—minutes later, hours maybe—I am empty. I am alone.

  I am dead.

  I just have to muster the strength to get up and make it official.

  I push myself onto my hands and knees and crawl over to the stairs. The third one creaks under my weight. So does the fifth. And the sixth. This is the only home I’ve ever known, and it feels like it’s saying goodbye with every squeaking floorboard and groaning joist.

  For the first time since I heard those shotgun blasts, I’m not afraid to go into my parents’ room. Nothing can hurt me anymore.

  Not for long, at least.

  I turn the corner into the master bedroom, but this time, I don’t find the faceless b
ody of my mother lying in a pool of blood with the shades drawn shut. I find an empty wooden bedframe, illuminated by the afternoon sun. The curtains are wide open. The mattress and bedding, long gone. All traces of what happened here … erased. It almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do. For leaving another bloody mess in the house that Wes spent so much time cleaning up.

  Maybe I should do it in the backyard, I think.

  Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter anymore.

  I flip the light switch in my parents’ walk-in closet out of habit and am surprised when the overhead bulb actually comes on.

  The second I see their clothes, the smell of them hits me like a sledgehammer.

  Stale cigarettes and hazelnut coffee.

  I want to wrap my arms around my mother’s hanging dresses and make them hug me back. I want to sway with them and stroke their sleeves against my cheek. But what would be the point?

  To make myself feel better?

  Or to make myself feel worse?

  Instead, I reach in between them and find a vintage briefcase I know will be there, hanging from a nail on the wall behind Mama’s church clothes.

  I set the brown tweed case on the floor, spin the numbers on the little dial to 503—my birthday—and pop the dull brass tabs open with a click. Inside is foam lining, molded around a small black handgun. Daddy used to let me shoot cans off a tree stump with this one, back before he turned scary. He said this one didn’t have much “kick.”

  I hold my breath and slide the magazine out, just like he showed me. It’s empty.

  But not for long.

  Crawling out of the closet and into the master bathroom, I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the vanity. I open the cabinet doors and dig all the way to the back, knocking over bottles and boxes and brushes until I find it—the jewelry box where Mama hides Daddy’s bullets.

  Hid.

  My heart pounds against my ribs as I pull the whitewashed wooden container out, both because of what it holds and because of what I find hiding behind it.

  A hot-pink cardboard box.