Nine Minutes Novels & Stories

I woke up in a private room at the family hospital. The white lights stung my eyes. My body felt like a truck had run over it. A doctor stood at the foot of my bed. His face was tired. "Mrs. Vitale," he said, "We did everything we could, but we could not save the baby. I am very sorry." He left before I could answer. I reached for my phone. No calls. No messages. Nothing. That did not make sense. Enzo never allowed his Donna to be out of contact for more than an hour. The last time a rival family kept me out of contact for three hours, he shut down half the city looking for me. Now? Three days. Nothing.

she asked in a whisper. Denise didn’t answer immediately. “You were selected after careful evaluation.” “Careful evaluation, what does that mean”,she asked brows raised. “Thats the only answer I can give you for now, Miss Lane” Aubrey pressed her free hand against her forehead, trying to make out what was going on. The hallway suddenly felt too bright, too loud, too unreal. “This is insane,” she whispered. “Miss Lane,” Denise said gently, almost professionally detached, “you have twenty-four hours to decide.”

I relay then to that ‘one day, I will. "All right. By the way, Sir Venal, what is our call time in the company? I haven’t asked Madam Lilith about it.” “As far as I know your call time will be Nine AM. Or anytime at your own convenience Miss Dahlia.” Nine AM? It is an unusual time for a maintenance member like me to report. It is the arrival time of those who work in the office. We should arrive earlier than them. Hmmm. Maybe there are different shifts scheduled, and I got the morning shift.

She carefully picked up each piece from the trash. She worked patiently to put them back together. There were exactly ninety-nine make-up cards. She remembered five years ago when she had looked at the cards with sincerity and said, “Yoel, don’t worry. I’ll never give you a chance to use them.” She also remembered all the times she had casually offered to use them over the years. The feelings she had worked so hard to save had been wasted in the two years with Connor until they were completely gone. Yvette, who had always been careful about numbers, seemed to lose all sense of the ninety-nine make-up cards whenever Connor was around.

“Who are you talking to? That cousin again, or someone I don’t know?” I had just finished confirming my flight. I locked the screen. “I was reading the news.” His face darkened even more. He snatched the phone from my hand and demanded the passcode. “Our anniversary,” I said. Nine years together. Six simple digits. He entered them once. Then again. Then a third time. The phone stayed locked in his hand. By the time we returned to Blackthorn House, neither of us had spoken another word. The car had barely stopped before he helped Lyra upstairs, one arm wrapped around her waist as if she might break.

"Yeah, she has such a bad temper. Locking her in there might be a good idea. I'll bring her some of her favorite shrimp later. "Come on, Joel," Dad said. "She'll be fine in there for a few hours." Instantly, terror surged through me. I pounded on the door with all my strength and screamed, "I'm not mad anymore! I'll apologize to Yvette! I'll do anything! Just let me out! I can't breathe! I'll die if I don't take my medication!" My voice cracked into a shrill plea, but no one answered. I crumpled to the floor. The itching spread from my back to my face, and soon, my throat began to close as well.

Jessica — First Person It was less than twelve hours to the Cannes Awards. Not that I was counting. Okay, fine—we were all counting. Liam had a whiteboard. Wilhelmina drew a ticking time bomb beside the number 12. And every hour that passed, they’d update the board and go, “Operation Vindication in T-minus—” “Eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes, and seventeen seconds,” Liam muttered like a tiny NASA technician, fiddling with his high-tech device.

she demanded. Dream Girl: 9 am. “That’s it?” Robin warbled. “I spend my entire day getting you two on the right path, and we get a couple of words? That isn’t even a word. Nine is a number. And who’s out of bed that early on a Sunday? I can’t do nine. Tell her eleven.” I turned to stare at the woman wedged between my phone hand, my mother, and myself, at the same time Jacques and Mom turned to regard her.