Free Style and Disgrace by Caitlin West Page A

mind. I couldn’t do anything. I was a reluctant observer. Waking up was not an option and yet there I was, seemingly aware…seemingly conscious…but not.
    “Oh, this is too much! Do you hear yourself? Now you’re threatening me? Come on!”
    The woman lashed out and slapped him in the face so hard he stumbled toward the edge, his hands slapping the railing. He leaned there for a moment, staring down at his gray yard. I knew his thoughts, knew the impulses that rushed through his sinews and nerves, tingling his extremities and making him tremble.
    He thought about the life he had built with that woman. He wondered how he could possibly have screwed it up so badly and how his urges had destroyed everything he loved. His lust had always been uncontrollable, but he figured he could hide it properly. He never counted on his sister-in-law telling his wife about their rendezvous.
    And he hadn’t counted on the impulse that drove him to a desperate act in the next few moments.
    I fought to move so hard my entire body throbbed and ached. Nausea threatened to overwhelm me and I fought through it, desperate to intercede before he could act. The whole effort was wasted. I was doomed to watch, a viewer in the theater yelling at the victim to avoid the dark cellar where the killer was waiting.
    He turned from his perch, tears burning his eyes. His hands lashed out and he grabbed his wife, who was considerably smaller than he was. Fingers tightened about her throat, cutting off a scream. He drew back a fist and pommeled her once in the face. I sensed the pain flare through her body for just a moment before she passed out.
    I experienced her death from a firsthand perspective. Even unconscious, some part of her was aware of her impending end. Darkness closed in from either side, pressing her head like a vice. Some unseen weight constricted her chest, squeezing her lungs with invisible hands trying to make a bag airtight. Her heart beat faster than ever before, like a terrified rodent in the embrace of a bored, murderous cat.
    She woke up just long enough to pass from the world. Her eyes opened and the last image burned in her mind was the very thing she had loved not so long ago. A face she thought handsome had become ugly, her murderer…her end. They had committed to each other and she had sacrificed so much only to be betrayed time and again.
    The final time was more than terrifying. It shook her to the core and as I watched her soul lift from the husk that had been her body, I began to sob. Her pain became his pain. I couldn’t sympathize. As he wondered desperately about what he had done, I wanted to see him die. I wanted him to follow her, the attack he had initiated visited upon him. I would have done anything at that moment to be the one to throw the switch, pull the trigger, or shove off the building.
    I bolted upright on my bed, falling onto the floor. Sweat-covered, I was having a hard time breathing. Tears flowed freely and I picked up the sobs from my dream without missing a beat. The clarity I felt while watching them from the window was replaced by sheer panic. Had I witnessed an actual murder or was my imagination simply twisted beyond reason? I couldn’t tell one way or another.
    I crawled to the window, clawing up the wall to peer outside. My pulse raced as I fully expected to see the man hovering over the corpse of his wife, but instead of a macabre scene, there was nothing. The empty deck, the vacant yard, and the opposite side of their fence still in desperate need of a paint job.
    What the fuck was that? I wanted to scream the question. A knock on my bedroom made me jump.
    “Abigail?” Ian’s voice was muffled, but I could still hear the concern. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
    I couldn’t help myself. Any port in a storm, desperation, terror, I couldn’t tell what drove me. I crawled to my feet and stumbled over to let him in. My fingers fumbled with the lock, but once it was disengaged, I threw