Dying for Rain (The Rain Trilog - BB Easton Page 0,13
He must have heard that line in a prison movie on Netflix.
“Antibiotics.” Accepting that I’m never going to sleep again, I sit up and stretch my legs out in front of me. It’s weird to see them wrapped in an orange jumpsuit. I wore the same Hawaiian shirt and pair of jeans ever since the fires broke out in Charleston. All I got out of town with were the clothes on my back and my buddy’s dirt bike.
Now, I don’t even have those.
“Antibiotics? Wow. That’s all it takes, huh?”
“Guess so. What about you?” I ask, suddenly curious about what this cubicle-dweller could have possibly done to land himself here.
“I … I stole an incubator from the hospital for m-m-my premature son.” He starts weeping again, and I immediately regret asking the fucking question. “My wife and I, we …”
“Hey, man. You don’t have to—” I interrupt, trying to spare myself a fucking sob story, but Doug just keeps on going.
“We’d been trying to have a baby for years. We did everything—spent our life savings on medical procedures—but nothing worked.” He clears his throat, trying to pull his shit together, and continues, “When the nightmares began, we were almost relieved. There was no point in trying if the world was going to end, you know? But as soon as we gave up, that’s when it happened. My wife finally got pregnant … but the baby wasn’t due until June.”
Fuck. I shake my head, staring at the floor now instead of the ceiling. I think I liked it better when he was crying.
“My wife, she … she lost it. The nightmares, the hormones, the fact that she was growing a child she’d never get to hold—it took its toll. You know how the announcement said that the April 23 hoax was designed to increase the global stress levels until the weakest members of society self-destructed?”
“Yeah,” I rasp.
“My wife was weak, Wes.”
Was. Past tense.
“Doug … fuck, man … I’m—”
“She … she made herself go into labor. I don’t know how she did it, but on April 20, I found her in a bathtub full of blood … holding our s-s-son.”
The sobbing starts again, and I can’t help but think about Rain. I think about the night I found her on the verge of death with a stomach full of pills. I think about the hours I spent with my fingers down her throat, saving her life. I think about her panic attacks and trauma triggers and the days she spent holed up in an abandoned mall because she was too scared to go outside without me. Then, I think about the baby she might be growing, and I realize that my girl and Doug’s girl have a lot in fucking common.
Maybe too much.
“I’m sorry for yer loss,” a third voice mumbles, pulling me away from my spiraling thoughts.
I look up to find Officer Hoyt standing outside our cells, holding a pair of ankle shackles and staring at the floor.
“Oh God. Is it time? I … I’m not ready!”
“Not yet,” Officer Hoyt mutters to my neighbor. “Governor Steele has a sentencin’ to do first.”
Then, he flashes me a remorseful, sidelong glance.
“Mr. Parker, I’m afraid I have to escort you to the courtroom now. Please stand with your back against the bars.”
Regret and panic shoot through my veins as Hoyt gestures for me to step forward.
“Stick your foot out through the bars, please.”
I do as he said and feel a metal shackle clamp down around my ankle.
“Other foot now.”
“Doug,” I ask, suddenly needing to know how his story ends, “if you’re in here, does that mean you saved your son’s life?”
Hoyt finishes shackling my legs and instructs me to stick my hands out through the bars next.
“Yes.” Doug sniffles as cold steel greets my wrists. “I think he’s going to pull through. My sister has him now.”
My cell door opens with a deafening squeak. As Hoyt leads me out by the elbow, I turn and glance at the man imprisoned beside me. He’s an older guy—maybe forty? Forty-five? His hair is thinning, and his skin is so pale I wouldn’t be surprised if the only light it saw was the glow of a computer screen. He’s wearing a blue button-up shirt with jeans and athletic shoes that have obviously never been used for athletics. He lifts his head as I pass and meets my sympathetic frown with one of his own, despair oozing out of his unshaven pores.
He looks like something I’ve always wanted. Something