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.

when lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered the windows with a relentless drone, and Jessica

memories crashed over

and gray, rain threatening

run to the corner store for a bottle of soy sauce, and said she could buy

out candy, even choosing

way home, swinging her bag of groceries, when she reached the

a

she finally looked, she saw it was

and unseeing, blood spreading from the

dark, snaking rivulets

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

shouted that a woman had

quickly surrounded her

the ground. She pushed through

to scream

parted, but no sound came

thunder and

their apartment, and

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

keening wind and rolling thunder outside never stopped, battering her small world with each stormy

never understood why her

her body, the

earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't

teeth, hands shaking as

screen was blinding

Her lips trembled.

of thunder nearly made her drop the

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