CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: COMFORT

Seeing Johnny as he lay still with his eyes closed in the bed was the most unexpected thing, not even when he planned to kill him. He still carried his angelic looks with his face carrying the most peaceful expression, as though he was not dead but quietly asleep.

Alisa had been crying, and he held her tight to himself, her head cradled on his chest. He was not comfortable himself— to laugh and have fun with a kid in the evening only to find out they had died the very next morning.

His eyes were wet and he blinked the tears off.

Since Avana, no death had hit harder. He had watched Avana grow weak and die and had had the time to prepare himself mentally for her death, but Johnny had been lively and happy the previous evening as the clouds gathered, and Jayden guessed that he would have been the same when Alisa was with him.

Jayden remembered himself listening to the drumming of the rain on his window. How was he to know Johnny was transitioning into the afterlife in that same rain?

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