The clock on the wall kept ticking, each second slicing through the silence of the cell. I stared at it, feeling every grain of sand fall through the hourglass that was my life. Seventeen hours left. Sixteen.
The numbers were all I could hold onto, something solid in a world that had turned to smoke. Outside, the crowd was already gathering. I could hear them through the walls, the shouted slogans, the chanting. Some of them were screaming my name, begging them to let me live.
Others were counting down the hours until I died. It was a circus, and I was the main attraction. . My father, Roman Brady,and stood outside my cell, his face carved from stone but his eyes betraying everything.
“Great news,Sami. We got Roberto to confess. ” He held up papers, release papers. “Get my daughter out of that damn cell.
”
My heart nearly burst. DaddI, khew you could do it. I hugged him, wept into his shoulder, thanked God for him, thanked him a thousand times. For a moment,light poured in.
Maybe this nightmare was finally over. I was going to see my son Will again. . But then the clock kept ticking, and the light flickered out.
Roberto was in and out of consciousness. My father was begging him to wake up, to say the words that would save my life. Roberto, can you hear me? Tell them.
Tell them Sami didn’t kill Franco Kelly. His eyes would open, then close, mumbling my name in a way that made my blood run cold. Sami… he whispered, and my father’s voice cracked.
No, Roberto. No. Stay with me. Who killed Franco?
Tell me who killed Franco, damn it. I sat back on the cot, hearing the warden’s voice reciting protocol like a prayer for the damned. “The doctor will check you out, then you can have visitors. We’ll serve your last meal.
You have the same rights as any prisoner. Burial or cremation? ”
“Burial or cremation? ” I repeated the words, tasting them, bile rising in my throat.
“What? ”
My brother Eric came to me, his face pale, his hands shaking. “I can’t lose you,Sami. I’d know if you were gone.
Like when we were kids, if I fell off my bike, you felt it. We have this thing between us. My heart’s pounding,Sami. You’re scared to death.
”
“I am, ” I admitted, for the first time out loud. “What happens if I never get to see you again? ” My voice broke on my son’s name. “My poor little boy.
He has to be raised by that drunken father of his. How could that happen to my sweet little boy? ”
Eric’s jaw tightened. “We have Nicole to thank for that.
”
Nicole. She was off on her honeymoon with Lucas, celebrating the custody win that had torn my son away from me. Kate had orchestrated it all, bought and paid for Nicole like a piece of furniture, shipped her off to Green Mountain Lodge in a limousine. “You’re into me for five million big ones, Kate had told her.
Take off that fluffy pink robe and start making your husband’s dreams come true. I’m not your whore, Nicole had shot back. But she’d gone anyway, because Lucas had my son, and she wanted him, and that was all that mattered to her
Meanwhile, John and Marlena were storming the governor’s office, refusing to leave until someone listened. My mother couldn’t bear to watch the crowds on TV anymore, so they were trying to change fate at the top.
My cousin Austin was at my husband’s house, trying to see my son, but Kate had turned him away at the door. Don’t come back, she’d said. You’re not allowed to see him. He’d heard Will crying through the door, calling for his mommy, and couldn’t get to him.
That was its own knife to the heart. The clock hit twelve hours. My father was at the hospital, waiting for Roberto to wake up. The doctors said his condition wasn’t hopeful.
Tomorrow was too late. I needed him awake now. Every minute the clock kept moving was a minute closer to midnight. My father swore he’d find another way.
He said he’d save me. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him. But the clock didn’t care what I believed.
. Outside, my friend Tracey was shouting into a microphone, her voice hoarse. “Sami is kind, beautiful, sensitive. She loves her little boy more than anything in the world.
She did not kill anyone. God said thou shalt not kill. That includes the state. Do not kill Sami.
”
Eric joined her, facing the cameras, facing the hateful crowd. “Sami didn’t kill anybody. There’s no way she killed Franco, and we’re going to prove that before she becomes another victim of murder. ”
The clock ticked on.
Midnight was coming, and I could feel every second slipping through my fingers like sand. Wohat happens when the clock stops ticking? I wondered. Do I stop breathing to occasional
I looked at my hands, picturing the needle sliding in, feeling the chill of the death chamber even from here.
My father was fighting for me. My brother was fighting for me. My mother was fighting for me. But the clock was winning.
. And all I could do was sit here, counting down the hours, waiting fora miracle that might never come. .
