Colour Series Box Set (89 page)

I laugh, “That is exactly what I thought the minute I laid eyes on her, but I did it anyway.” I always knew she would be the worst kind of trouble.

I smile and I feel it, the feeling I came home to find. Happiness. I have lost everything I thought would make me happy but gained a little girl that will never make me sad. The glue that holds my happiness together was never love, it was always the madness.

TRAPPED IN THE GLASS tower high above the world below me, I stare out at the place that was meant to be our happily ever after. Every minute, since our plane landed here, has felt like one closer to my last. I know that Callum is angry at me, I know he knows the ugly truth. I want to go back in time and stop myself, but I can’t. I want him to love me past this, but he won’t. Even if he did, watching the love of your life die a slow agonizing death is more torture than any heart could bear. Knowing that you caused that suffering and pain is enough to crush your soul. I think I would rather die than watch him dying by my hand.

He doesn’t know how to look at me, so he doesn’t. I swing the diamond rings on my finger round and round until my skin hurts from the rubbing. I pace up and down waiting for him to return the minutes pass by painfully slowly. The sun has gone down and I can see lights on the ships dotting the horizon. I still don’t stop hoping the door will open and he will return. My heart wants to admit that he is gone and that the illusion, I created of love, was just that an illusion. I ask myself if I ever really loved him or if he was simply the next life raft to save me from the sharks waiting to kill me in the water? I leave the big windows and find the kitchen, open a bottle of red wine, the label matches the sign I saw at the gates of Rowan’s home. I fill a glass with the smooth Cabernet and drink it slowly as I wander through his home. My bags are in the master suite and I decide it is time for a bath.

With my wine bottle and glass, I sink into the hot water and let the bath bubble envelop me. The smell of roses and the taste of wine drown the grey that has not let go since he hurt me last night. It won’t go away, I know it will stay until I kill someone until he watches me as I let them suffer. I close my eyes and a montage of the faces of my victims as they perish flashes in my mind’s eye. I must be tired because the warm water on my aching body and the wine lull me into a light doze. The faces flash faster and faster and the grey becomes thicker and thicker. The last face I see before I am startled awake and drop my glass into the water is not his this time; it is always Callum’s face last. This time it is – mine.
I can end this never ending circle of madness and I finally know how.

I wake up to my wine in the water my heart racing and tears stinging my face and I know what has to happen tonight, before he returns and I see his face again.  There is only one way to stop the grey to take away the madness that we have we created together.

I get up out of the water, the wine has made it seem bloody. I dry my long hair and put my makeup on before I go and get dressed in my favourite clothes. It is a bit hot here for stockings, but I put them on regardless. I slip on my signature black heels and inspect myself in the mirror. I can see the toll that this relationship has taken on me, it is etched in the lines making their way onto my face.

When I am happy with the way, I look I return to the living area of the apartment. It is after eleven and Callum is still not back. I slide open the large sliding doors to the balcony that looks out over the dark water of the bay. Only a few white wave crests and the ship lights in the distance break the blackness of the night. A gust of cool fresh ocean air blows through the doors and inside. I slip my diamonds off and lay them on the patio table blood diamond filthy and vile just like me. I slide out of my shoes and put them next to the rings. I place the small vial of strychnine that I took out of my bag with them on the table. I look at three things that have defined this moment, defined me and climb on the railing.
I am so sorry I killed him. I regret that I killed them all.
My heart thunders in my ears and breaks for the love, I’ll never get to feel. I am what happens when you break a little girl, I will not stand and watch as we break another. I feel the lead of my heart, I don’t love Callum. I am not capable of love. I care enough to set him free of me and my poison so that he can find love. The little girl in the graveyard reminded me of a little Shannon playing in the cemetery and the boy who helped make her into a killer. Avery’s monstrous eyes and sweet smile lift my spirits as the air swishes past me. My heart stops before I hit the ground I don’t feel it but I watch it.

I look just like Cassie I have the same bloody halo, but I deserved mine.  I deserved to die for killing him.

My own death is the high that I have sought for so long. I feel so alive in my own death it is beautifully sad. The tragedy of my life is leaving me and I am free.

The security guard finds my shattered body in a pool of crimson blood. I hear him phone Callum to come. When the police arrive I leave, I don’t want to see Callum when he comes. I walk away and into the arms of the man who made me this way. He would never take more from me because he never really wanted me at all. Neil has come to take me to hell.

When I sat down to write this story I had no idea where these two would take me. This story was hard! I tried so hard to redeem these two – I promise. It just was not meant to be. I am a serial killer show junkie and after Dexter ended I was left wondering “What would that relationship have been like? The killer and the poisoner?”  It was in imagining that disaster that Shannon and Callum came to life. How would two sociopaths work together? When I spoke to a therapist about this the answer was simple – “It would be the most destructive relationship ever, and would not end well for either of them.”

When I finished writing it I seriously considered just hiding it away because it was to quote a friend “perverse”, but I needed to tell this story before I can tell Avery’s.

This series is set in a world where the characters are simply not good people, they are never going to be. The story will go on in My Black Hole Heart and I do swear that there will be some happy in the end.

Thank you for diving into this dark little spot of my mind with me. I hope you enjoyed it.

Take Me To Church  - Hozier  *** This is Shannon and Callum’s song it always will be for me.

Work Song – Hozier

Lies – The Motherland

I Bet My Life – Imagine Dragons

Centuries – Fall Out Boy

Shut Up and Dance – Walk The Moon

Riptide – Vance Joy

I’m So Sorry – Imagine Dragons

Sail – Awolnation

Mess Is Mine – Vance Joy

Gives You Hell – All American Rejects

Zombie  - The Cranberries

Sai It Ain’t so – Weezer

Wake me Up When September Ends – Green Day

From Eden - Hozier

Castles Of Glass – Linkin Park

Angels – Robbie Williams

Something I Need – one Republic

For Rick,

This year was hard, but together we made it to the end. Your strength inspires me.

Your support keeps me going and your love makes every single day worth it.

I am not me without you.

xx

Acknowledgements

Every book takes a small army to get it from inside my head and onto the pages, this one was no different. 2015 was filled with some epic highs for me and some very hard lows and my little book tribe was with me through both of those. I had a number one book on Amazon with Mary, something I still can’t believe. Thank you, Mary for bringing The Goodbye Man to me. A little dream became a huge reality for me.- When I wrote my first book I told myself, ‘I can do anything,’ and I have done just that.

I spent weeks sitting beside my husband in a hospital bed after an accident that could have easily taken him from me and my little girls. I have so much to be thankful for, don’t take life for granted, tomorrow is never promised.

To my friends and family who were there to hold me up when I was down, thank you. I am not entirely sure how I would have managed this one without you. Mom and Dad for saving me in little ways that meant the world—thank you. Rick’s Mom, Dad and Nana, Kelly, Ian Gianni and Ang for sitting with Rick while he was healing so I could get these words on the pages thank you, I cannot explain what it meant to have all of your support when we needed it so much.