Remember This✔

Chapter Fifty

Molly looks at Charlie. He takes a step closer and then another.

"The courage to live is right in front of you. And he isn't going anywhere." Molly takes a deep breath as she realises no one is really saving her but she is saving herself. "Don't let that monster win. Fight, Molly. We will see each other one day but not today."

Molly lets go of the wall and she steps back. She shakes her head and the glow vanishes, there is just herself and Charlie. The rain is the only obstacle between them and it is no obstacle at all. Molly runs to him and his body relaxes as he anticipates her approach. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and they slide to the ground. He holds her face in his hands and he chokes on his relieved breaths as he looks at her.

"I thought I'd lost you," Charlie says, his voice breaking.

He studies every inch of her face before pulling her into a kiss. She melts in his embrace, all the emotions swirling around in her stomach until she can no longer breathe. Charlie is starting to get weaker and she tries to help him up but then she feels a pressure against her throat. Charlie's eyes widen as he looks above her and then Molly is yanked to her feet by a strong hand.

"Stay on the ground or I'll slit her throat," a voice says.

Molly keeps her eyes on Charlie as she's forced to back away from him, the large blade is removed from her throat and the stranger steps around her.

"Get down," he commands. "On your knees."

Molly slowly drops to the floor. The stranger keeps the blade in his hand as he stares down at her. He drops his hood and Molly sees his face for the first time. She's surprised by how normal he looks. He's a middle-aged man with brown hair, pale skin and small, beady eyes.

"I've waited a long time for this moment," the man says.

"Why are you doing this?" Molly whispers.

"Because your father took everything from me!" he yells. "I made one mistake, one tiny mistake, and he had me fired. I lost my career, my home, my wife because of him."

Molly gasps. "You're the doctor that misdiagnosed me."

He nods. "Now you know what depression feels like. To be sucked into a black hole of pity and grief and confusion. It was supposed to be your father that survived, that would have suffered. But, well, Jacob got a little trigger happy and killed him."

Molly closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath.

"You were supposed to die that night," he says. "I met Jacob in a bar when I was at my lowest and he told me if I needed someone taking care of then he was the perfect person. And your family was his. . . preference. It was the perfect plan. He knew how to get away with it and there was no evidence to implicate me. I wanted your father to suffer, Molly, to suffer so badly that it would have been him standing on a bridge. I didn't want you to suffer though, I told him to make it quick."

"Quick?" Molly says. "He raped my sister; he stabbed her ten times."

"I'm sorry for that," he says, as though that makes it better, as though it will bring her comfort. "I made sure he picked a night when the baby wasn't there, I'm not a complete monster. But you left early, you weren't supposed to leave early. It made me so mad to know that he wasn't suffering because his precious daughter was still alive." He grabs Molly's chin and she shakes her head out of his grasp. "It took me an entire year to work out a way to kill you but you weren't there then either."

Molly widens her eyes. "You set the fire that killed my grandparents?"

"I made it look like an accident too," he says. "Jacob refused to go back to Florida to finish the job so I had to do something. After the fire the FBI got involved and I lost you for a very long time. Until, Jacob's arrest. I knew you'd go straight onto social media, what teenage girl wouldn't?" He stands up, turning to look at Charlie. "But when I saw you, you were still broken, I could tell. I needed you to be at your happiest. I needed you to be as happy as you would have been that night. And I have you to thank for that, Charlie."