Page 35 of The Heir

I looked at him, and his eyes pleaded with me to listen, to not run away.Murdered?

Murdered—

Murdered—

Murdered—

The word echoed inside of my head over and over again. I repeated it so many times that it started to sound strange, started to sound like it was something else entirely.No, it isn’t possible; it was a hit and run, most likely a big semi-truck that didn’t notice us. I looked at him, wanting to know more about what he knew, of what he had learned—and yet, not wanting to know anything at all.

“What?” I said almost speechless.

“It doesn’t make sense what happened, how it happened—” he ran fingers through his hair as he shook his head.

I looked the entire wall over, searching.

“Did you talk to the police?” I asked as I sat down in his desk chair, still trying to wrap my head around all he was telling me.My parents’ deaths were murder?

“Yes, I started with them first, and it was weird. They couldn’t say what happened.” He pulled out a notebook and turned to a page. He held it up to show me in the light. There, I could see a sketch of a man. He reminded me of someone–I looked harder and realized I had seen that man before,but where?

Suddenly, my mind took me back, back to the day I hated more than any other day in my life. The car was spinning upside down. It had made its final flip, and I woke up for just a second to see my dad dangling in front of me, bleeding out to the clicks and ticks of his watch. I took in a breath as my memory went blank. Then, as I thought I would open my eyes and see that I was in Ryker’s bedroom again, I was still in the car, and the blood was still splattering on that stupid watch, and I gasped for breath, and my neck hurt, and my leg felt wet and sticky.

I looked at my father, and his eyes opened. He? said, “Emma, I am so sorry,” before his eyes slid closed, and I screamed as blackness surrounded me, and I begged it to stop, begged it to pull me to Ryker, but again, I opened my eyes, still seeing my dead father, but that time, I also heard voices.

“Yep, all dead. It’s confirmed.” I saw a boot kick the side of my dad’s car door. I screamed and called out for help. A few moments later, there was a hand reaching for me, and I took it. A face appeared—that face with black eyes and black hair, his nosecrooked as if someone had punched him in the face and it had never healed properly.

“You okay, Emma? Hold on,” the voice asked.

“Help,” I croaked. I watched as he somehow got my side of the car door open. Loud scraping and sawing pierced my ears, like the cries of demons. I kept going in and out of consciousness. Then a hand, again reaching inside, unbuckled me, held me, and pulled me from the car. That man set me down on the ground and wrapped his jacket around me.

“The police will be here soon, Emma. Try to stay calm, alright?” he said, rubbing his hands over his coat to keep me from shivering.

“Okay,”I said in complete shock. “Okay.”

I snapped back, and I was in Ryker’s room, and he was staring at me.

“Emma?” he asked me, worry in his eyes.

“Ryker, this man didn’t kill my parents. He saved my life.”

“One of the policemen saw him flee the scene and tried to call out to him, but he drove off.”

“He helped me. He didn’t do it,” I said, pushing the picture away.

“But that night you told me you saw someone, someone who maybe hit your car.”

I didn’t remember that, and I was shocked that the sketch brought back a memory I didn’t know I possessed.

“Are you okay?” Ryker whispered beside me.

“I remembered. I had a flashback; my therapist said that can happen.”

“Emma, I am so sorry.” Ryker moved to sit on the desk.

“So what are you going to do now?” I asked, trying to gather my thoughts, but there were too many.

“I need to find him, figure out who he is exactly.”

“How are you going to do that?”