THE LAST TEXT I SENT

The Last Text I Sent

The phone buzzed on the counter, its screen glowing like a beacon in the dim kitchen. I ignored it. My hands were wrist-deep in dishwater, scrubbing a pan caked with last night’s lasagna. The buzz came again, insistent, like a wasp trapped in a jar. I dried my hands on a towel, the rough fabric catching on my cracked skin, and glanced at the screen.

**Unknown number:** *Come to the pier. 11 PM. Don’t mention it to anybody.*

My heart skipped a beat. I had not been down to the pier since I was a child, back when Dad used to take me along to see the fishermen bring in their nets, the air heavy with salt and possibility. That was before all changed—before the accident, before the years in silence. I hit back with a swift response: *Who is this?*

No reply. It was 9:47 PM. I looked at the message, the words seared into my eyeballs. *Don’t tell anyone.* It felt like a secret was being thrust upon me, like I should be drawn to something, but I didn’t know what. Despite better sense, I reached for my jacket.

The pier was the skeleton of what it used to be, the boards groaning beneath my boots. The ocean rumbled beneath, some forceless monster rending at pilings. There was one streetlight casting uneven shadows. I looked at my phone—10:58 PM. There were no new messages. It was chilly, with that crispness that came from the sea, and I jammed my hands into my pockets and felt the heaviness of the unknown.

A form stepped out of the shadows, hooded, but walking with intent. My heartbeat increased. “You came,” said the voice, low and recognizable yet I couldn’t identify it. The figure walked into the light, and I stopped breathing. It was Lena—my sister, whom I had not seen in seven years. Not since the battle. Not since she had accused me of killing Dad.

“Lena?” My voice cracked. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t smile. Her eyes, once bright, were hollowed out, like she’d been running from something for years. “I needed to see you, Mara. There’s something you need to know.”

“What?” I took another step forward, but she raised her palm and halted me.

“It wasn’t an accident,” she told me. “Dad’s crash. I found proof.”

The world tilted. Dad’s car had come off the coastal road, crashed into the sea. They said that he had been drinking. I had assumed so too, shouldered the responsibility for not having prevented him that night. Lena had screamed at me, said I should have taken his keys. And then she had gone, rejected me as far as she was concerned.

“Proof?” I whispered. “What proof?”

She extracted a wrinkled envelope from her pocket, and her hands shook. “Letters. From his boss. Dad was going to expose something—corruption at the docks. They made it look like it was an accident.”

I reached for the envelope, our hands met. It was heavy, genuine paper. “Why didn’t you mention it sooner?”

“I couldn’t. They were staring at me.” Her voice lowered further. “They’re still staring.”

A branch snapped behind us. Lena's eyes were wide, and she tugged at my arm. “Run, Mara. Now.”

I didn’t think. We ran down the pier, feet pounding behind. The streetlight sputtered and died, leaving us in blackness. I groped for my phone, the phone’s screen light a lifeline. I texted my friend Jake: *Pier. Help. Now.* My thumb hovered over “send,” but Lena’s hand closed over mine.

**"Don't,"** she whispered. **"They will trace it."**

“Who’s they?” I snapped, but she was already yanking me towards the beach, where the sand devoured our steps. Footsteps behind us were louder, coming closer. My heart pounded, breath uneven. Lena stumbled and I pulled her upright, the envelope dropping from her hands. It danced through the surf and vanished.

**"No!"** she yelped, running for it, but I pulled her behind a dune. We crouched, panting, as beams of flashlights swept across the shore. Men’s voices, low and tense, floated across the wind. They were close.

“Why me? Why now?” I whispered to Lena.

She looked at me, her moonlit pale face. “Because you’re the only one I trust.”

The words hit like punches. *Trust.* All these years, after the accusations, the silence. I had wanted to scream, demand answers, but the flashlights were closer now, the voices louder. We had to go.

We snuck across the dune, keeping low, till we were at the parking lot. My car was there, a battered sedan that wouldn’t run very well. We slid in, and I inserted the key, hoping it wouldn’t stall. The engine sputtered into motion, and I hit it hard, the tires squealing as we burned rubber.

In the rearview mirror, I saw them—two figures, still, regarding us as we passed. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I did not heed it, my hands trembling on the wheel. Lena sat in silence, gazing through the window, her breath misting the glass.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Anyplace but here,” she said. “They will find us.”

I drove, the road blurring before me. My phone beeped again. Even though I should have used better judgment, I looked at it. Another message from the mysterious number: *You shouldn’t have run.*

My stomach dropped. I showed Lena the screen, and her face went white. “Mara,” she whispered, “did you send that text to Jake?”

I froze. My thumb must have brushed “send” in panic, hadn’t it? I looked at my messages. There it was: *Pier. Help. Now.* Sent 11:09 PM.

The headlights flickered. The engine stuttered. And in the distance, too close, I could hear the low rumble of another car.

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The Last Text I Sent touches on betrayal, trust, and what secrets keep us together. If you enjoyed this, share it and let me know what you think in the comments!

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**The Last Text I Sent — Final Chapter**

The engine coughed, sputtered again—and died.

“No. No, no, no!” I slammed my fist on the steering wheel, panic surging. We were dead in the middle of an empty coastal road, surrounded by trees and fog, the silence too deep to feel safe.

Lena gripped the door handle, eyes scanning the rearview mirror. “We have to run.”

Before I could respond, headlights flared behind us.

Too close.

Two vehicles.

One of them crept forward, silent as a predator. I reached into the glove box, fingers trembling, and grabbed Dad’s old flashlight. Useless, but it felt like something.

“We go into the woods,” Lena whispered. “They won’t risk the terrain. Not on foot.”

We bolted.

Branches lashed our faces as we scrambled through the underbrush, the ground slick beneath our shoes. The darkness pressed in, heavy and wet. Behind us, doors slammed. Footsteps followed. And then—the unmistakable snap of a silencer.

A bullet thudded into the tree next to me.

We ducked, Lena gasping beside me, her shoulder grazed. Blood, bright even in moonlight.

“There,” I hissed, pointing. A cabin. Half-sunken into the hill, covered in vines. Abandoned, but shelter.

We dove inside, slamming the warped door shut. I shoved a rusted chair under the knob.

Inside, dust choked the air. A trapdoor gaped open in the floor. “Basement?” I asked.

Lena nodded. “Or tunnel. If this is what I think it is… Dad used to talk about hideouts when he worked the docks.”

We climbed down.

The passage beneath was narrow and damp, the walls lined with old shipping records, crates, and—letters. Dozens of them. The same handwriting as the one in the envelope.

Proof.

We had stumbled into Dad’s hidden cache.

“This is it,” Lena whispered, holding up a folder stamped with the name of the dock authority’s director. “This can bring them down.”

Footsteps pounded above. A beam of light pierced the trapdoor crack.

And then—Jake’s voice. “Mara? Lena?”

I froze. “Jake?!”

Another voice followed—angry, clipped. “We tracked the phone.”

Lena turned to me, eyes wide. “He led them here.”

Jake dropped through the trapdoor, gun in hand—but he wasn’t aiming at us.

He fired up.

A scream.

A thud.

Then silence.

Jake looked down at us, panting. “I saw your message just before they did. I beat them here by seconds.”

Tires screeched outside.

More were coming.

He handed me a flash drive. “I uploaded everything I could from your dad’s stash. We get this to the press—we end this.”

Lena clutched her side, pale but focused. “Let’s finish what he started.”

We climbed out, ducking through the back exit as more agents stormed the cabin.

As we drove off in Jake’s car, dust trailing behind us, I looked at my phone. One final message appeared from the unknown number:

**This isn’t over.**

But this time, I smiled.

“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But now—we’re ready.”

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**THE END**