Page 8 of Haunt Me

Nothing about this room makes sense without her in it.

I drop onto the couch, and my eyes land on the blanket folded beside me. The one I had wrapped around her outside last night.

My fingers close around it before I can stop myself. It’s still cold and damp in spots. I press the blanket to my face before the sound that builds in my chest can get out.

Everything feels wrong.

“Where is she?” The question barely sounds like me.

Jon shifts his weight against the counter. “The funeral home came about an hour ago.”

An hour ago.

I stare at him. “You let them take her?”

Jon exhales slowly. “Sam.”

“You let them fucking take her?”

I’m on my feet before I realize I moved.

Knox jumps up from his seat at the same time. “You were half unconscious on the floor and freezing to death.”

“I should’ve been there.”

“You were.”

The anger leaves me almost as fast as it came because Knox looks wrecked, too. Not angry. Not defensive.

Just tired.

Destroyed.

His little sister is dead.

I sit back down hard enough that the couch creaks beneath me. My hands shake. I stare at them like they belong to someone else.

“She was cold,” I say quietly.

Neither of them answers.

I don’t even know why I said it.

Maybe because it keeps replaying in my head. The snow in her hair. The cold creeping into her skin while I held her and begged her to come back to me, like love was enough to pull someone back from death.

It wasn’t.

Jon clears his throat first. “Funeral home said we can come later today if…” His voice breaks a little, and he looks down at his hands. “If you want.”

I close my eyes.

Later today.

As if there’s a world where I walk into a funeral home, and Raven’s there instead of here. My wife should be in our home. She should be getting ready to open Christmas presents while I make coffee.

Instead, there’s an empty blanket and a funeral home waiting for us to pick out a casket.

Something ugly twists low in my chest.