A Beast Among Gods (The Mac Tire Chronicles) by Garnet Davenport (big screen ebook reader txt) 📗

on foot with my mac tire speed and ogre strength. I’m sure I looked like a beast running to where my heart was pulling me.

When I saw the smoke in the air, I knew I was close. I ran into a scene where bystanders were helping to get them out. My truck was completely totaled. I stretched my hearing out and only heard one heartbeat from my truck. I ran over and pushed my way through the men trying to open the passenger side door.

When they caught sight of me, they cracked up in fear. I grabbed the door by the frame and pulled it completely off the hinge. I reached in and picked up Taylor. She had a gash on her head and blood dripping down the side of her face. I knelt down, protecting her with my body, and trying to wake her, but it was no use. Her heart had stopped.

I roared out in anguish.

I looked around, trying to find Lucy. They had already pulled her out of my truck, and they had placed her body in the grass while they tried to get Taylor out. I stood, Taylor in my arms, and drug myself over to my Lucy. I held both of them until I had to let them go.

The police had told me that it was a drunk driver. He hadn’t survived the crash. He had been thrown from his vehicle and died on impact.

Jefferies and Jean came to me the moment they found out. I told them I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed time and space. I needed my family, and I was never going to be with them ever again.

“Striker, you can’t just run away from this,” Jean said.

“I’m not running. I just can’t let anything happen to anyone else I care about, and the only way I know how to do that is to not care for anyone ever again.”

“No, Striker. Love is everything. I know you’ve been through so much…”

“Jean, please,” I begged her to stop. I couldn’t take anymore. “I just need to be alone.”

***

I buried my wife and baby girl on a rainy, cold day. Jean and Jefferies held each other tight, and Lucy’s parents sobbed uncontrollably. I had let them get taken away. I couldn’t protect them even though I had vowed to keep them safe. I felt my blood pumping hard. I felt failure.

“Striker, it’s going to be all right,” Jean whispered to me.

I hadn’t said anything back. I watched as they lowered them into the ground and then walked away. I had already packed up my things and left a note for Jefferies and Jean. I left them our house to rent out for extra income and told them that they could sell everything.

I sold Lucy’s car and got a motorcycle and took off.

I had never intended on returning to Wisconsin. Too many memories and too many dreams never fulfilled.

➣ Chapter 19

Alone

I ended up somewhere in the Nevada desert a week later. I was dehydrated and starving. I also wanted to die. But I knew I wasn’t good enough of a man to be with Lucy or Taylor on the other side. I had taken lives with my bare hands, and I hadn’t felt remorse.

I finally gave up on myself and waited for my own death. One I deserved. But when night came, my hallucinations started. My angel came to me that night, wearing robes of white and a heavenly glow lighting her.

“Get up,” she said.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Your fight is not over. Get up.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. You just don’t want to.”

“Why would I want to? You’re gone. Our baby girl is gone. I have nothing left.” I growled.

“You have everything left. Take that anger and sadness and fight. The gods have told me you have a bigger purpose. They need you to fight. To keep fighting. There is a girl that needs you. She can’t make it through this without you, and your destiny is to find her and love her as you love Taylor.”

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head.

“You will. You will because that is the kind of person you are.”

“I’m not that person. I never even told you what kind of person I am. I’m not even a person; I’m a beast. I never told you.”

“You are the person I fell in love with, and I knew your secret. I hoped one day you would tell me, but you had so much pain in your past. I never wanted to force it out of you.”

“How could you have known?”

“We all knew. Jefferies and Jean are of mac tire blood. They knew the day you came to them.”

“I never… they don’t smell like it.”

“No, they don’t. It was to keep you safe. To give you love. I was sent to you for that same reason.”

“Then why were you taken away from me?”

“It was my time. Fate was meant to be this way. And I’m here with Taylor. Your mother and grandmother. John and Diane. And Jamie.”

I looked up at her, and she nodded.

“They need you to keep going. To fight. Go find yourself. Grieve us. And move forward.”

“How do you know I can?”

“Because you are stronger than you think you are, and I believe in you.”

“I don’t want you to leave me.”

“You won’t ever be without me. We will always be looking over you.”

I felt a warm touch on my cheek, and then she was gone. I was alone in the desert and missing all of them more than any other time in my life. I laid there and eventually fell asleep, wondering if what I had seen really happened or if I was going crazy.

The next morning when I woke, the sun was beating down on me, and my throat was so dry that it felt like I was dying. At first, I had thought that I had. I deserved it, and I knew I wouldn’t be in whatever heaven Lucy was in.