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Even the birds seemed to have been silenced, or maybe just disappeared completely, leaving us prey to painful tranquility.
For a second, everything seemed dead.
As dead as my friend that was lying on the cold pavement.
But just for a second, because the sound of the rescue units broke through the stillness.
Though what were they coming to save when there was nothing worth saving any longer?
Madness began.
Ambulances and police cars were multiplying by the minute as my tears made them just blurred clouds of color.
It all felt surreal.
Nothing made sense any longer, just like I’d been transported into a parallel universe where no one could even reach me.
No one, except Brax.
I remember his voice breaking through the crowd of people gathered in front of me— so many that I couldn’t even see Jenna anymore.
It felt like he was pulling me back from the depths, reaching for the surface with the last remaining powers. Though I was choking, like something so evil was zoning in on me so that I could never recover.
‘Bea.’ Brax’s call was a lost echo drifting in my mind as his hands kept roaming my body like he was searching for something. ‘Are you okay?’
He was searching to see if I’d been hurt.
But I couldn’t answer. My lips couldn’t move to murmur even a word, frozen in front of everything that was happening around me.
‘Was she hurt?’ I could hear Brax roar, ready to rip Cole’s head off like he had something to do with any of it. My king of EMA was just there to protect me, pulling me so close to his chest that I thought I was going to suffocate.
‘She’s all right,’ Cole tried to reassure him, although it was a lie.
I wasn’t all right.
I was so far from being all right that it was scaring me to the bone.
‘Who did this?’ Brax snarled towards my bodyguard, who was paler than the snow blanketing the ground.
He knew all too well who Brax was and what could be the consequences of failure. ‘The police know nothing,’ the guard answered, trying to keep focus and retell the events as they happened. ‘No threats. Not any kind of conflict. All we could hear was a shot being fired. I saw a man running at 9 o’clock, but I didn’t try to pursue him. My objective was protecting the girl.’
‘What did the man look like?’ Brax was continuing his interrogation, while it was the first time I was finding out what happened.
‘I couldn’t see his face; he had a hood pulled over his eyes. But from what I could ascertain, he was caucasian, around 5 foot 8 tall, athletic figure.’
‘You just described a quarter of the Echo’s city male population. Fuck.’ Brax was obviously recognizing what had happened as a direct threat to our security. ‘Cole, keep an eye on her. I’m going to talk to the police.’ My king of the underworld signaled his man to join him as I was just starting to realize that the incident had every chance of having something to do with me.
‘Cole, was I the target?’ I turned to face him, uneasy about what his answer could be.
‘I don’t know yet, Mouse... I just don’t know.’ He pulled me even tighter to his chest, trying to take away my worries. ‘I will always protect you. Always!’ He kissed the words onto my lips so slowly that I was beginning to think they would infiltrate my being.
‘She was wearing my coat,’ I said as soon as Brax returned, trying to make sense of what just happened.
‘Do you think the attacker could have mistaken her for you?’ Brax arched an eyebrow, trying to put two and two together, although I was beginning to think that he was already suspecting what I had just told him. ‘The police don’t know shit. Not that I am surprised about that.’ He seemed even more pissed off than before— if that was even possible. But Brax’s words soon became just random noises as a familiar face just made its way through the crowd and straight to the police-closed area.
A man in his forties was breaking through the students gathered around the yellow crime scene tape, ignoring all warnings and threats and plummeting straight on top of the white sheet that covered Jenna’s body.
He looked so much like her, even if his face seemed transfigured by pain. A heartbreaking image that would be forever etched somewhere in the back of my mind.
