This material is unedited and subject to change. © A.M. Wilson 2015

Prologue

    Time is running out.  She wasn’t supposed to get away.  Why did she fucking get away?  I was too cocky.  Blinded.  Marlena gained the upper hand along with beating the hell out of my face.  Now, I have two options.  Either go after her or get the hell out of dodge.

My foot presses deeper on the gas pedal; the car headed the only direction I know is safe: North.

Canada.

If I can cross the border before she finds her way out of those woods, I’m free.  And, if I’m really lucky, she’ll never find her way out.  She’ll die like I intended. Like she deserves.  Those woods have a ten-mile radius of tree coverage.  Only one way in and one way out.  There’s a lot of area to cover before she’d hit the convenience store twenty five miles down the highway.  She’ll probably pass out from exhaustion and starvation and that would be that.  There’s only one thing left to do before I go.

Up ahead, the lights of an all-night gas station suddenly illuminate the road, and I yank the wheel to the left, driving the car off the highway and onto the concrete drive.  Grabbing the thick manila envelope beside me, I scrawl the now familiar address onto the front.  No return address necessary.  The large blue mail bin waits beside my idling car.  I roll down my window.  With one last look at the envelope, one final moment of hesitation, I drop the package inside.  Gripping the wheel tightly, I speed away before I hear the telltale thunk it landed safely inside.  All the answers to everything are inside that envelope.  I hope the intended person reads it and understands.  I wasn’t always this way.  Things weren’t always headed down this path.  But a series of wrong choices brought us here.  Maybe a series of right ones can bring us back.

I may have intended for her to die tonight, but if by some miracle she doesn’t, I want everything spelled out for her.  When I see her again, there won’t be any more questions.  She won’t need answers.  She also won’t be able to deny that we aren’t so different after all.

We belong together.  One way or another, we will be together.  It’s the way fate intended for us to be.