Eric appeared between the trees, angst in his eyes and his breathing uneven.
A hint of relief flashed through his features before urgency overtook them again and he spoke, his voice battling his loss of breath. "Luna, thank God. I thought I'd never find you."I furrowed my brow, walking over to him. "What's going on?"
He was still out of breath. "Something's happened. You've got to come with me, quickly, you've got to get home now."
"Why? What is it?" My heart pounded faster, my pulse hammering among my veins as if it wished to escape through my skin.
Eric swallowed, eyes meeting mine. "It's your father."
Fear sliced through me like a blade, and worst case scenarios began running through my brain like a teleprompter, each thought more terrifying than the next.
When I awoke I was somewhere unfamiliar and I heard a storm raging outside.It was too hot and I felt constricted, covered in blankets. I blinked to look around the dark room.I didn't recognize where I was and my senses were hazy, slowly coming back to me. The feeling of fabric of soft blankets covering me above soft clothes, warm flesh pressed against my own.Crash of thunder, flash of lightning. The room came into focus.Outlines of bookshelves against one wall. Dark windows. The unmistakable outline of evergreen trees outside. A warm body next to me, soft blankets, no bed frame.I sat up rapidly, my eyes adjusting to the darkness as everything came back to me, my father's death, someone had shot my father, my father is dead.My breathing wa
Later that day, sadness and anger washed away from me and was promptly replaced with a type of numbness I could only associate with the death of my mother. Now I associated it with the death of my father as well.I took a shower and got dressed and slowly brushed my hair, watching the ends curl up again after each stroke through the thick black colored strands.Eric made me coffee and I drank it slowly, staring at the trees outside the window. The coffee was too hot and I burned my tongue. It began to rain outside again and then stopped twenty minutes later, as if the sky had decided against it.At one thirty Eric softly suggested I go home."The police are going to be there," I said. "I don't want to go and face all of this.""I know," he said quietly. "But you have to."
The corridors of City Hall seemed empty and lifeless as the three of us walked through them, the photographs of the former mayors seeming haunting now that my father was among the deceased.The receptionist in the lobby had given me a sympathy soaked look as I walked by and I tried to ignore the way her eyes softened and her lips pressed together, her head shaking slightly.When I opened the doors to my father's former office I had to stop and catch my breath for a moment.It was eerie and foreign feeling looking around the uninhabited office because everything was untouched.The leather chair and mahogany desk, the pictures of our family framed on the bookshelves, the curtains on the large window tied neatly as they always were.It felt as if my father could walk in any minute and the prospe
Captain Lee was standing in the door of an office when I arrived at the police station. "Miss Allen," he greeted me. "Hello," I said, my voice sounding a lot more stable than I was feeling. "Is everything alright? Is the autopsy finished?" "Yes, we received the results this afternoon. Step inside my office, will you." I walked into the small office to find Eric already sitting there, his hands folded in his lap. I sat down beside him, confused. Captain Lee sat down behind the desk in front of us. "I've called Genevieve down here as well but I assume she's still resting," he said. I looked at Eric who didn't meet my gaze and then looked back at Lee. "What's going on here?" Lee leaned forward on his desk, folding his han
I arrived at the police station in a short amount of time, out of breath from the brisk walk and the adrenaline that coursed through my veins.I was only thinking of ways to get Eric out of taking the blame for a crime he didn't do.The station was abuzz when I arrived. I searched for Captain Lee or someone else I recognized, spotting Lee across the room speaking into a walkie talkie. I moved quickly towards him, and he stopped talking to address me."Run more tests," I said before I could lose my train of thought. "Of course there would have been Eric's fingerprints on the gun, he's the owner of it. Test to see if the gun has ever been shot. If it hasn't, there's no way it can be him.""We already sent it to the lab for more testing," Lee said."But we still have to keep Eric in
When I woke up the next day I carefully got up away from Nova, covering her with the blanket and trying not to wake her. One of us should get some sleep.I attempted to cover up the dark circles under my eyes with makeup but it didn't help all that much.I knew visiting hours at the police station began at eight and I was up at seven, not knowing what to do with myself.Genevieve was awake too, already sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee when I went downstairs. She turned her head to look at me as I entered the room."It's empty without him here, isn't it?" She asked, her voice soft.I nodded, pouring myself a cup of coffee. For a second I couldn't tell if she was talking about Eric or my father.Both were true. "Yeah…"
I stared at the closed doors to my father's study for a long time.For a moment when I shut my eyes it felt like he could be in there, on a phone call or surfing the web on his computer or flipping through a book.It felt like I could step inside and ask him about his day or offer him help. It felt wrong to want to go in there and snoop among his things for a possible suicide note.The thought sent a shiver through me. The logical part of my brain suspected that it couldn't have been a suicide, not with the circumstances of his death, but the heavily emotional one felt like a hamster running on a wheel-clogged with too many thoughts, too many theories, too many feelings.Captain Lee told me that if I needed to go inside the study I could, but I was to be careful in case they needed to consult the
"… But in the end, there is no life on Earth without the sun. As for Luna." I looked up at Eric, who gazed at me from behind the cold metal bars of his cell. "It ends there." "It just stops?" "Yeah. I can't stop thinking about it. I want to know what he was going to say but I never will." "And why did he just cut off?" "I think…" I took a deep breath. "Maybe someone intercepted him. Took him out before he could do it to himself without ever knowing he planned to commit suicide. They took him out for another reason. I have a feeling." "Who?" "I don't know. My best guess at this point is Killian." Eric chewed on his bottom lip. "I wish I could help more."