Carol Cassada: Bain by A.L. Wood

Warning: This is intended for an audience over the age of 18. This story also ends on a cliff. You've been warned.

Raised in an environment that exuded love, Bain couldn't understand why he felt so empty inside.

He had it all- a financially stable, successful career and the overwhelming support of his loved ones.

Rumer wasn't in need of saving. She didn't need his help.

She had gotten this far on her own...why accept a strangers obvious charity?

Bain wasn't trying to save her, nor was he donating his time freely.

Has Bain finally found his match in the ring of life?

Can Rumer crush his undefeated streak?

Excerpt:

An inkling, that’s how it always starts. Something that can’t be seen—only felt—hardens into knots in your gut. It catches you off guard, unaware as to why you feel that way. You start to question everything around you. You wonder what’s going to go off like a bomb because this feeling always comes back to something bad. I couldn’t have predicted that the something bad was going to be horrific…no one could have known.

Yes, the possibilities are endless as to what could cause the feeling of my stomach sinking, the nausea that threatens to exhale what I ate earlier for lunch. I don’t expect a phone call as I stand in line at airport security to change my life forever—to cause irreversible damage.

“Lawson, what’s up?”

“You need to meet me at your place, immediately.” I hear Lawson say over the line in a haunting tone.

“You know I can’t, I’m headed to Vegas. Remember, the meeting you sat up?”

“Bain, that can wait—this cant. Please, I can’t explain over the phone.”

Something about Lawson’s tone tells me I shouldn’t argue, that he needs me to just shut my mouth and do as he asks. He wouldn’t have called me without reason.

Even while running out of the airport and hailing a cab with my baggage in hand, I don’t recognize the sickening twist of my stomach to be a sign of what’s about to come.

Tossing money to the cab driver, I haul ass into Sara’s and my apartment. The door opens as I approach it and Lawson’s face greeting me. His eyes are drawn down, looking away from me.

It’s bad.

I know it is.

“Tell me.”

His eyes meet mine and he breaks. Fucking folds right in half like his weight is too much to hold up underneath the stress of whatever it is he has to tell me.

My gut. The feeling.

This is why. This moment right here—it’s going to define my life.

“There’s been an accident…we need to get to hospital. I’m driving us.”

Sara.

Samantha.

My world. My life. The reason I’m doing what I do with such devotion.

“What?” I pause and my thoughts leave me. I stumble back, falling on my ass. On my front porch. I just…this can’t be real.

This isn’t real.

It’s just a horrible nightmare that I’m bound to wake up from at any minute.

No.

“Bain, get in my truck. Now.” Lawson says with renewed strength.

I stare at him, one million questions on the tip of my tongue.

I couldn’t tell you about the drive from the apartment to the hospital. My last memory was falling on my ass. My second is falling to my knees in the emergency room foyer.

No one has to tell me that someone has died.

I can read it on every single one of their faces.

Griffin, Jade, Mom, Dad. They all look to me with empathy—maybe even pity. They’re as lost as I am.

I haven’t shed a tear since I was twelve because men don’t cry. Okay, I shed a few when Samantha was born—but no one saw so it didn’t count.

Today though, I shed more than just a tear. I drown in them. My breath is stolen, my throat constricts and my heart shatters into fragments.

When I manage to find my voice, I ask the question I don’t want the answer to. I brace myself for the impact the loss is about to attack me with.

“Who?” I whisper into the air.

It’s Lawson who tells me.

The only one with enough strength to carry us both through this nightmare.

“Sara.”

I scream at the world.

I break at the suffering, sobbing.