Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Chapter 108

Timothy stared at the message on his phone, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing

screen for a long while.

[Do you like it?]

He typed a reply.

[Yeah, just like Happy and Lucky.]

He pressed his lips together, thinking.

If Sheila liked them, there was no harm in giving her one too.

There were twenty-two left.

He bought them all, though he only intended to keep one.

The rest, he'd throw away.

It was just an excuse to set one aside for Sheila.

[If you like it, keep it.]

Capital City.

Jessica was too afraid to sleep. She huddled in the corner of the hotel room, knees pulled to her chest, shivering so hard her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palms.

Every clap of thunder struck like a hammer against her heart.

out the power, plunging the room into total darkness. Only when lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind

crashed over

the sky was heavy and gray,

mother had handed her a twenty, told her to run to the corner store for a bottle of soy sauce, and said she could buy

candy, even choosing

was practically skipping on the way home, swinging her bag of groceries,

was a sickening

froze. When she finally looked, she saw it was

and unseeing, blood

in dark, snaking rivulets across

eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Her skin was as white as paper-utterly

shouted that a woman had

quickly surrounded

to the ground. She pushed through

out, to scream

but no sound

thunder and lightning

alone in their apartment, and followed the ambulance to the

out. In the darkness, the image of her mother's broken body played on

and rolling thunder outside never stopped, battering

never understood why

in her body, the time she'd wasted

home earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't

shaking as she

screen was blinding in the

Her lips trembled.

nearly made her drop the

ached with panic, breath coming in ragged gasps, as if she might