Her body failedher a few times and forced her to pass into unconsciousness buteach time she woke with a greater determination and larger anger tohack away at the thick black stitches at her side. When the finalone snapped free she lay there for a moment, covered in blood andsweat with her breath coming out in short gasps.
She flung theknife away and heard it clatter against the wall somewhere to herright. She could feel the blood leaking from her wounds but paidthem no attention. Instead, she turned onto her left side andmanaged to sit up. Her hand skittered against the vanity until itfound a roll of gauze. This she wrapped awkwardly around herabdomen, over her breasts and around the stump of her rightarm.
Partiallysatisfied, she made it to her feet. The door kept tilting from sideto side but Amber paid it no mind. She all but fell out of thebathroom and shuffled to stand before the staircase. Lying at thebottom of the stairs in a messy pool of half-congealed blood wasGreg. She let out a grunt of determination and made her way downthe stairs.
They rose up tomeet her a heart beat later and she felt her tibula snap under thepressure. She felt the bone push through her skin and almostlaughed. When she finally slammed against the floor for the secondtime that day she let out a little breath of relief.
One armed, shepulled herself closer towards Greg’s limp body. Amber ignored thepain from the leaking wounds on her right side. She disregarded theagony from her broken leg. She overlooked the ghost pain tellingher that her right arm was still attached to her body and couldhelp. She snubbed the throbbing in the back of her head thatthreatened to take her under again. All she cared about wasreaching the body of the love of her life.
Finally she wasable to pull herself over him, draping herself over his motionlessbroad chest. She imagined his arms coming around her and smiled.She scowled a moment later as she remembered the necklace at herthroat. This she pulled off with a growl and tossed it somewhere inthe home. She did not care where it went because it was not a giftshe wanted to own or see again.
She settledinto Greg’s broad form with a sunny grin coming to her face. Ambersnuggled against him and closed her eyes. No movement came from thehouse but in the distance she could hear police sirens. She vaguelyremembered her friend mentioning that people could cut securitywires and was in disbelief that it had only been a half hour.Perhaps the neighbours had called when she was screaming. Perhapsthe wires being cut had not alerted the authorities until it wastoo late.
Amber pushedall these thoughts out of her head and snuggled deeper into Greg’sdead body. She pictured the smile on his face when he saw her. Shecould almost feel the gentle pressure of his arms around her waist.She swore she heard his deep voice saying her name and beyond theblood she could smell his cologne. As an ambulance and a policecruiser pulled into her drive-way Amber let out a small breath andknew no more.
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Ending note: Originally My Sweet Valentine was to be novella sized.Obviously, that did not happen. At only a little over 14,000 wordsit makes it into the novelette category. Part 5 (Valentine’s Day)was unplanned besides me knowing I wanted to sew Amber and Russelltogether. Amber was not supposed to retaliate as she did. She wassupposed to wake up after the sewing, listen to Russell speak againthen die. I’m not entirely sure where she got her strength from butI’m glad it happened.
As promised I’mgetting back to you about whether or not I actually like thisstory. I do, despite some awkward sentences and a slow start, Ireally enjoyed writing this. I especially enjoyed the ending. Notbecause it meant the story was over but because it was fun towrite. Yes I like writing morbid things.
As stated inthe inspiration section (which was really just me rambling again) Iam doing the 12in12 challenge and this was supposed to be mynovella for the second month. It bled into the third month and gaveme and extra 4,000 words. Maybe 5,000 depending how much more Idecide to add before sending this out into the World Wide Web.
Am I frettingat being behind my goal for this month again? Nope. Daimin VanHelgrove and his father Demek came through for me again last night(February 6th) and I wrote a scene with them that spanned over11,000 words. That brings my total to 15,000 or 16,000 and it’sonly the 6th.
The scenewas when Daimin finally realized how much of an arse he had beenover the first 20 years of his life and how much he needed tochange to win the love of his soul mate. The scene won’t see thelight of day until I write and publish the second book in the VanHelgrove trilogy. That’s right, the second book. Have I written the first?Nope.
As forwhat I’m going to write to make up the other 4,000 to 5,000 words Ineed to get this month’s quota, I have no idea. I do have a fewmore fairy tale spoofs to finish for my Fairy Tales Gone Wrong anthology I’m planning toput out in either March or April. Namely I have to make SleepingBeauty a witch, Rapunzel a crazy warrior, and turn Goldilocks intobear poop.
I do findit exceptionally funny that my LittleMermaid spoof became a novella and My Sweet Valentine barely qualifies as anovelette. It was supposed to be the other way around. Hell, Icould almost turn my version of the LittleMermaid into a novel. But I won’t because then itwould take too long to edit it and I would never be able to releaseit when I want to. Plus
