Chapter 1
Click Click Click. Her eyes fluttered open to the sound. He held a Beretta 92 to her forehead.
The feeling of being pounded by a million bullets at a millisecond rate, so she laid pinned there. As if the Sleep Paralysis Brute had finally come to do its scientific experiment. She looked up at him with eyes wide as the spoon her father ate with—she dared not move.
The room was silent. Not a pin dropped if it wanted to. And a tad bit dark with only the moonlight that made its presence known through the thin white curtains. Nor could she see his face, so it had this eerie vibe to it. The vibe a person gets when they decide to watch a horror movie on a Friday night by themselves, and they get this feeling that someone or something is watching them. He kept squeezing the trigger as if to empty it and said: “This was how it happened, Zai,” He choked out and wiped a bulky hand over his face as he pressed the muzzle on her forehead. “This was how!”
Zaiyah jolted awake, panting as she clutched the comforter set under her chin.
“Jesus...” She scanned her whereabouts and flopped back on the bed; her chest heaved, a hesitant hand to her forehead as she released a sigh. What time was it? She turned to the window: it was still dark outside. And guess who wasn’t beside her? Before he left, everything was bliss. Happy wife, happy life. Wasn’t that the saying? Things and times had changed in the Alexandre household. She still hadn’t got used to it. But that didn’t stop her from caring for the family. She pulled on her robe and strode down the hushed white-walled hallway. Lit by LED light wall sconces. She checked on each of her children individually. The robe cascaded around her as she did her routined ‘Touch Test’ on the smaller ones, detecting for a fever.
Her husband was not in the house.
“Jason?” She ventured downstairs to check the kitchen, basement, and laundry room. Where was he? As she turned the corner leading out in the foyer, a cool breeze blew over and ruffled her hair. The front doors were wide open, so that made sense. It was spring, mid-march, a time the year before when every soul could recall that miserable lockdown. School-goers rejoiced—her children could attest.
Why were the doors open at this hour? She stepped outside as she tied the robe around her, using a hand to shield her face from the pitter-patter raindrops. Lawn lights adorned the open manicured green grass. The tresses of the trees twirled, provoked by the wind’s temper. There, out in the rain, her husband raked the leaves that the wind scattered around the lawn lights.
She moved closer to the lawn. “Babe? You don’t wanna catch a cold, do you?”
He did not answer, and her thin satin robe was now close to wet.
“Jason!” She tried again.
He continued to gather the leaves.
With the huff of a breath, she went back inside in search of an umbrella. As bad as it was in Covid times, she didn’t want the neighbors to gossip about what her husband didn’t have. Zaiyah stood under the umbrella as she lounged against a small RedBud tree that was not much of a shelter from the rain. She swatted the flowers as its base lowered too much for her liking. Its purple leaves waved in the gusty wind—perhaps to mock her conscience.
He was lost at war before he came back to you. It was only a matter of time.
If you look at it from the outside, their home was of a modern french chateau style two-story mansion. Manor looking. Comfortable enough for the couple and their brood.
She had neither the time nor patience out there with him. By the time he’d finished, all she had to do was get the children’s breakfast fixed for school. Yet, she helped him scoop the leaves in the bin and ensured that he had a jacket and his coffee for the work he did.
