002 Six Months of My Life Gone!

(Ava)

I missed Lila’s 2nd birthday and woke up to her death day.

They’d taken bone marrow from Lila. So, the paternity test was faked.

And still the reversal of results never raised any red flags for Zach?

“No one will believe you. You’re a crazy crack addict,” Sienna’s voice continues over the phone, sounding satisfied, “everyone knows that now.”

“Lila has gone… you can’t use her anymore.”

She laughs. “You’re wrong. We only need one more donation for my son. And they can take that from her as an organ donor. With her father’s approval, of course.”

“You’re mad. You are sick. Why not just let her live?”

“We don’t need your kid to look after. We don’t need her for anything anymore.”

Her vicious words keep going. “You may as well go and finish yourself off like your druggy father did because Zach hates you. He’s always hated you.”

“No, you’re wrong. You have him fooled. He loves me and Lila and that is what you can’t handle.” I wanted to go through the phone and throttle her.

“Everyone hates you. You have nothing left to live for. Thanks to me. You’re welcome.”

“Put Zach on the phone.”

“Sorry, Sweety, but he is with everyone eating cake for Kai’s ninth birthday party at the mansion today.”

She laughs.

“Oh… And we’re also celebrating that Kai will soon not have to be in hospital again.”

Then she disconnected the call.

I could have gotten away from this horror show if I hadn’t been so stubborn. So sure.

When Lila was one, Caleb, my best friend Paige’s older brother, came to me.

We… have some history. He had questioned my choices. I could’ve left with him that day.

Why didn’t I just listen?

My father. The day Lila was born. He wanted me to go away with him.

He was scared for me.

He said the way it all happened so fast, there had to be a catch. That the Lornes never did anything without a calculated payoff.

He’d already lost my mother to Robert Lorne, Zach’s much older brother.

He told me to trust him.

I refused.

I mean, he wasn’t stable. He’d had substance abuse problems for years.

And why was it so hard to believe that Zach Lorne could just be in love with me?

Wasn’t I good enough?

Why didn’t I listen? He took his own life soon after that.

That night I got pregnant and married. The two things I said I’d never do.

I can’t change any of that now. If I could, I would do it so much differently.

Now, I think back to what Sienna just said. They can get marrow from my baby girl’s lifeless body…

I can change that.

I’m barely strong enough to walk but I know what I’m going to do.

***

“Ava! You lunatic! Give me that child!” Sienna’s voice cracks through the front window of the mansion I used to live in with Zach.

The fire roars behind me, a living monster swallowing the walls, chewing through every memory in this place.

Sienna continues to scream like it will suddenly change my mind. “Do you want my son to die? Is that what you want? We still need Lila!”

To them my two-year-old daughter was nothing more than a tool.

A resource to be used until she was empty.

Now she is empty. She’s crushed against my body. Lifeless.

I’ll burn her body with me before I let them get any part of her again.

I laugh, the sound tears at my raw throat. “You’ll never get another piece of her! Not now. Not ever!”

Sienna’s face twists. “You selfish witch—”

The firefighters shout from the drive. Heat presses at my skin in waves. I shift Lila in my arms and kiss her temple.

I fix Zach with my gaze. “I know you loved me, Zach. I know you did.”

“Ava,” he says, softer, and there it is—the man I married, buried under layers of pride and anger. “Please.”

I hold his eyes and shake my head. “No more.”

Sienna’s voice spikes, shrill, panicked. “Zach! Do something.”

“One day,” I say to Sienna through the smoke, “even if I have to claw my way back from hell, I’ll make you choke on this.”

I look at Zach one last time. His anger is back. His doubt of me is clear.

No forgiveness. No softness.

“If you loved Kai at all, you’d do the right thing! She’s already… She’s already gone, Ava! Let her save him!” Sienna’s pitch rises into something even more desperate.

But joy floods through me at the thought that Sienna cannot win this one. 

Not this time.

Zach makes me sick. Letting his own daughter die while he ate birthday cake for his son.

I don’t care that he loved me. He still let himself be lied to by her.

The smoke thickens, curling in my lungs, making the edges of my vision pulse black.

My arms tighten around Lila. “You get nothing more.”

Zach steps forward again. “You’re out of your mind—”

“Sienna is. She did all of this.”

I see his mind working.

“Come on, Zach. A wrong paternity test? Then magically, when I’m out of the way, you find out you are her father after all. The great Zach Lorne is a fool. You got played alright, but not by me.”

Zach’s voice booms, his expression twisted with disgust. “You’ve finally lost it. You’re a pathetic junkie. Just like Sienna said you were.”

I look at him defiantly. His words can’t hurt me. Nothing can. Not anymore.

“If you’d asked,” I scream back, “I would’ve given Kai anything. But you don’t deserve him. And you sure as hell don’t deserve Lila.”

“You think this makes you strong?” Sienna spits. “It makes you a murderer. You’ve killed Kai!”

Her scream is pure fury, her words tumbling over each other. “You’ll burn in hell for this!”

“Then I’ll save you a seat,” I shout back, my throat shredding with the effort. “Because you killed Lila.”

And the flames take us.

***

(Zach)

I watch her fall in the flames. It’s horrifying.

“Ava… No!” My heart has seared with her.

How could she do this to me, to Kai?

She’s made a crazy choice taking Lila’s body with her. She’s denied Kai a healthy life.

The drugs, the drugs took her over, changed her.

I thought she loved us. I never meant to love her, but I did.

Sienna rages and pounds her fists against my chest. “Get in there! Get in there and get that child from her!”

“It’s too late, Sienna.”

Her voice cracks, jagged with panic. “I didn’t do all this work to miss out now! I need that spoilt brat’s body!”

I push Sienna away so hard she falls backwards onto the grass.

“Don’t! Don’t you talk about Lila like that!” I roar at her. “Was it you? Did you do what Ava said you did just to get the bone marrow?”

“Yes! Zach, I just can’t lose Kai. I can’t.” She begins to sob and cry uncontrollably.

I’ve known Sienna forever. She thought she was my best friend.

I was so sure she wouldn’t harm anyone I loved on purpose.

I have proof of Ava’s drug use. Her father was an addict…

But it turns out, I was played by Sienna from the start.

The roof of the mansion collapses.

The firefighters shove harder at me now, pulling me away, holding me there. There’s nothing I can do. I’ve lost them both now.

Maybe I should’ve told Ava the truth from the start. That I wasn’t looking for a marriage.

I wasn’t expecting to fall in love.

But I did.

And now she’s gone.

I failed her.

I failed them.

I abandoned my wife and daughter who needed me.