Shadowing Me(58)
***
Tatiana
I rock back and forth and shudder at the dried blood caked to my arms. I can’t clean it up. I can’t move. I can’t talk. All I can do is replay the image of them carrying my brother into the compound, blood still leaking from the bullet wound in his neck.
I don’t understand what happened. I can’t even imagine what went down, or why my brother is no longer alive. Everything is a big blur, and everyone shouting about what went wrong isn’t helping me.
Funny thing is I don’t even want to know. Knowing isn’t going to bring him back from the dead. All it will do is scar me more. I am making myself numb. It’s the only way I will survive living this life that I was born into.
The first person I lost to a tragic death was my grandfather, and after that, it was a non-stop ride on the train of death. It hasn’t stopped chugging. The evil in this world keeps stocking the engine with coal.
What is my dad going to tell his adoptive parents? How do you tell parents that their only son is dead?
I can’t bear it. I can’t. All these emotions swirl inside of me, designing a tapestry of hate.
And Sabine, she’s been here a few days, and she had my brother so wrapped up in her, he couldn’t see left from right, or good from bad. She is the reason he is dead, I suspect. If I hear that she is the cause, there is no telling what I might do. The anger makes me so hot that my ears heat.
“Tea, baby, you need to clean up,” Shadow says quietly as he bends down in front of my shaking body.
He needs to go away. I can’t deal with all the extra emotions that emanate from being near him. The atmosphere that radiates is too strong for me to handle as I grieve in my shocked state.
“No, leave me alone.” I push him away.
He doesn’t listen. Instead, he rests his knees on the carpet in front of me, takes me in his arms, and yanks me into his chest.
“Cry, darlin’. Don’t hold it in.”
I don’t want to cry. I want to sit here and bounce back and forth in peace. Can’t he see that? I want to be left the hell alone.
“Please, let go of me,” I whisper into his chest. “I need time to myself.”
***
Shadow
“Please, let go of me,” she whispers into my chest. “I need time to myself.”
The plea in her voice is like a knife to the gut. She isn’t even crying, and that worries me. Tatiana has always been one to express her feelings. She doesn’t keep them bottled in. When her arms break free, she shoves me away, and then kicks off with her rocking.
I stay where I am for a few more seconds and then stand. She isn’t going to allow me to comfort her. If she is pushing me away, it speaks a loud message to leave her the fuck alone. I wish I could clean the blood off her at least. She’s too beautiful to be covered in gore from her brother. I step back slowly, turn around, and make my way towards the commotion in the kitchen.
“I’m gonna kill that fucking bitch! He was a prospect. He shouldn’t have even been there,” ZZ yells at the top of his lungs.
Storm and Piper scoot away from him. His face is bright red and the veins pulsate in his forehead. Blood covers the floor, and his dead son lies on the kitchen table. Bloody rags litter the room, but no one dares to pick them up.
“He wasn’t even fucking nineteen years old,” ZZ shouts as his fist plows through one of the cabinet doors, snapping it right off the hinges.
Prez comes into the room and looks around as he rubs his temples. He is stressed to the maximum.
“Get her the fuck outta here, Prez.” ZZ tries to speak more calmly.
No shit. Sabine wanted adventure. Who the fuck says that when guns go off? The stupid bitch.
“Winter made a call to their mom and left a message. If she isn’t gone by tomorrow morning, I’ll escort her outta town myself,” Prez answers ZZ. “Brother, what do you want to do?”
We look from the Prez to ZZ, and then back down to Mace Jr. whose eyes are wide open. Jesus, no one bothered to shut them? I stalk towards him, take two fingers, and close his eyes.
“Have him cremated, and afterwards, I’ll take his ashes to the family that raised him,” ZZ says. Defeat is written in every line of his body.
***
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tatiana
Last night, I watched as my brother’s body was loaded into a hearse, and was taken away from us to be cremated. He won’t even get a proper burial because of the way he died. How is that fair to him? He didn’t deserve to go out the way he did.
I shut down exactly twelve hours ago. I let my feelings dissipate into thin air. The logical side of my brain screams for me to open up, to let people in. I refuse to listen to it. My brain doesn’t experience my emotions. My heart does, and my heart is finished being broken.