Death At Your Rescue [Book 1]

16|"Grief."

You held an ocean
of tears in your eyes
And I wanted to be the sun
That would rise above your waves
To enlighten your cloudy days
♡

Lauviah parked the car in front of a house. The neighborhood was quiet and the concrete still wet from the morning rain when we both stepped out.

A dog kept barking it the distance as Lauviah closed the door. She paused a moment on the sidewalk, immobile, her eyes fixed on the wooden two-story home.

She exhaled deeply before walking into the front lawn and up to the porch where she rang the doorbell.

I remained by her side, quiet. I noticed her body starting toward me and her lips moved as if she was about to say something but before she could, the door opened in front us and a young man appeared.

The resemblance was striking.

It was like looking at a masculine version of Lauviah.

"You didn't call," the man said, a frown drew his eyebrows together.

I immediately sensed Lauviah tense next to me and the spiral of her aura that had been quiet for a while now, shook nervously.

"I'm supposed to call before visiting my brother?"

"You know what I meant," he answered in a clipped tone.

"Caleb, can we just-" she stopped mid sentence. When she spoke again she sounded more collected than before. "I'm not in the mood for this. Can I come in or not?"

"I'm busy today, so make it quick." Her brother stepped aside and we both entered.

The living room was a discarded mess of materiels for painting, oils, tubes, color pencils, brushes, sheets of paper thrown haphazardly with incomplete sketches of the same portrait repeated over and over. A woman who seemed to be around the same age as Lauviah and Caleb.

Lauviah surveilled the place with distant eyes. She crouched to the ground to pick up a crumbled sheet of paper at her feet. When she opened it, her breath seemed to get stuck in her throat and her hands trembled slightly.

"As you can notice, it's messy. I didn't expect visitors."

Her brother walked pass her and into the kitchen. He didn't acknowledge the fact that she had picked up on of his drawing and seemed to be on the verge of exploding while looking at it.

"I hope you're not that hungry!" Caleb called out. "I only have some leftovers from a pizza I ordered last night.

Lauviah closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. When she slowly exhalhed, her breath was uneven.

She did it twice before she regained enough composure to follow her brother into the kitchen.

Lauviah had pocketed the drawing and had now recover a neutral expression. She sat down at the table and her brother placed a glass of juice in front her and a plate with a slice of the pizza he had mentioned.

"You're not gonna eat?" Lauviah asked when she noticed that he sat down with nothing in front of him.

"That was the last slice."

"So you're just gonna sit there and watch me?" Her voice had gotten edgy despite her visible effort to control herself.

She seemed on her guard. As if she expected her brother to snap but instead he wearily passed his hand over his face as his shoulders sagged.