”What do we have?”

“Aimee Cutler, twenty-one. Critical condition with gunshot to the abdomen.”

“And what of the fetus?”





“Presumed dead; paramedics did not arrive in time.”

“Oh my, the poor thing.”



“They found two others in that room; she was the only survivor.”

Awaking in the hospital bed the following morning was enough to ensure what I thought were nightmares were actually real. My abdomen ached and was void of anything made out of love, as was the niche in my heart for her. I silently hoped this was actually the nightmare, though the memories were far too strong for it to be so.

After Aidan’s death and my own attack I could feel my life slipping away from me as I lay there on the floor, waiting for someone to come. It was crazy to me that with seven other rooms in the same building, no one had heard the shots. Or perhaps they had but were too scared. Nonetheless, I was going to die for it. I began to wonder if it should be any other way.

The only man I had ever really loved had been stolen from me. He was murdered in cold blood, unsuspectingly shot in the head from behind. It had happened so fast; there was no way to react. The moment I saw him laying there, I knew. I knew he was gone. A part of me had died along with him. A large part.

My heart would only suffer if I survived, I figured. With my first born lost to me for so long, my only son taken from me once again and knowing the passing of my unborn daughter was imminent, how was I to go on? I had no heart left! My own death only seemed fitting.

So I waited. I waited for the last breath to pass my lips, the last beat to strum my broken heart as the last drop of blood spilled from my open wounds. I had always been wounded, always open and bleeding. How perfect to go literally in the same respect. Only the end never came. My heart continued to beat in my chest, my breath though shallow still grazed my open lips. At the hospital my wounds were finally closed and the bleeding slowed. I would live, but what sort of life would it be?




It was a while before I was well enough to leave what had become my prison. My mother collected me from the hospital and took me home, except that it was no longer a home. It was empty, yet full of reminders of those I had lost. The moment I stepped inside I was dying to run away, to flee from the sight of Drake’s toys on the living room floor and the memory of many nights with Aidan sleeping soundly beside me upstairs. I didn’t even want to think of the nursery that would never be used. There would be no new memories made there, it was evident. I had to move as soon as possible.




My new lonely life began in a small one story home close to where my adult life had begun those years ago. The Brokes remained in their pink trailer across the road from my modest blue bungalow, though the debris on the front yard had grown. Seems I had left at the perfect time. I had no neighbors at the new place which suited me fine, I was not ready to get back into some sort of social life despite the nice offers I was given by attractive men at the nearby grocery store. My mother though I was crazy for declining dates from these men.

“You deserve to be happy darling; they would want you to be happy!” she’d cry into the phone.

I’m sure she was right, but I just wasn’t ready. That rang true for the entire decade following their deaths.

Ben and Drake hadn’t turned up anywhere in all those years. There’d been no sightings, no news. For all I knew they could have died in a car accident that same night. I gave up hope that I’d see my baby boy again, it had been just too long. And my daughter, I had even less faith in seeing her. I’d come to believe I wasn’t meant to be a mother.

Every child I’d ever conceived had been taken from me one way or another. I just had to hope that wherever the surviving two were, they were happy and living a full life.


It would sure make up for my trainwreck.


Continue to Generation Two