Scarlett isn't sure her life could fall any further apart. On the morning her husband, Captain James Tamworth admits to cheating on her, she's diagnosed with cancer.
In the midst of caring for their two small children, battling through her health t...
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I sit up slowly. James is still in the doorway, chest heaving up and down as his steady hand keeps the knife pointed at me. It's like my worst nightmare come true as he creeps forward, looking like he's going to kill me.
"James. What are you doing?" God, my voice is so wobbly.
His eyes widen. "How do you know my name?"
"It's Scarlett. James, it's me," I say, starting to grow petrified with the knife in his hand.
He's trained to kill.
When the moment of confusion hits him, I know he's forgotten me. Is he back at war? Am I the enemy now? How will I protect myself from him?
"How the fuck did you get in here?" he hisses, eyes almost growing black when I switch the light on in the hopes of it waking him up.
I slip off the bed to put some distance between us, stopping dead when he shouts at me to stay where I am. My heart has never pounded this much in my chest. It's racing so hard, it almost hurts.
"James, please stop this. It's Scarlett. Can you hear me? Listen to what I'm saying, baby. Please," I beg him, moving back without thinking.
He leaps forward. "Who sent you?"
Oh, god, this isn't good.
I hold up my hands thinking it might trigger something to let him know I mean no harm. "Nobody sent me. I'm your wife, and I love you. I won't harm you. I just need you to calm down for a minute and listen."
It seems what I'm saying is making him madder, almost like the words are different in his head. The door slams shut when he drags it across the carpet, a crunching sound coming from the lock.
"James." My tone turns stern all of a sudden. "You have to stop this. You're scaring me!"
"On your knees. Now," he roars, approaching around the bed.
My sweaty hands are shaking terribly as I do as he says, because fighting him will probably end in disaster. I watch his feet rounding the bed through the gap at the bottom of the bed frame, breathing so erratically it makes me dizzy.
He's still keeping his distance with the knife pointed outwards. "Do you think you can just sneak in here and put all my troops in harms way without a consequence? Who sent you?"
"Nobody," I sob, quite honestly scared for my life. If he doesn't come around soon, he's going to hurt me, I know he is. And it would destroy him. "IT'S SCARLETT!" I scream in the hopes it might jog his memory.
The bridge of his foot goes crashing into my stomach, knocking me onto my side. It knocks some wind from me, but not badly. My cough says otherwise. It becomes very apparent then that he's totally lost in the moment and I have to start thinking logically.
