Chapter 32: The Empty Bed
The ocean was a black mirror that had swallowed my heart whole.
I stood on the desolate shoreline with the freezing tide licking at my boots. The metal leviathan was gone. It had slipped beneath the surface without a sound and taken Kaelen into the crushing depths.
There were no bubbles left. There was no sign that the love of my life had just sacrificed himself to save me.
The silence was louder than the explosion had been.
I looked down at the bundle in my arms. My son was sleeping. He was wrapped in the shredded remains of the tactical jacket Kaelen had warmed with his own body heat. He did not know that his father was gone. He did not know that we were alone in a world that wanted to devour us.
A pain ripped through my chest.
It was not a physical wound
