#11

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ELEVEN

'It's hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.' – Chris Brown

I've always felt people were being melodramatic when they said they could feel the air being sucked out from the room. You can breathe, I would think, nothing is that bad.

But then it happens.

It's the moment everything comes tumbling down like an earthquake shattering a city. I can feel it in every inch of my body. My toes are tingling, my ears are ringing. And I can't breathe. It is as if all the lights have gone out.

I'm not sure why the words come out, but my accusation is hot in the air.

"You're lying."

But even I know they wouldn't lie about this.

The feeling is indescribable.

"Eva," a voice pleads from behind me.

I'm aware I'm still standing, but I'm not sure for much longer I can take it. My whole body feels weightless and I sway from foot to foot and try to keep my balance.

I can't possibly picture a world without my brother. They have to find him.

"Eva," comes the voice again. I glance to the direction of the voice, and the occupant is James. I feel too sick to even contemplate the emotion displayed his face. He's looking at me like he understands but I can't comprehend that right now. My brother isn't dead. I repeat it again and again inside my head. My brother isn't dead.

He's only missing.

I walk away from the group toward the back of the safe room and collapse in a heap against the wall, my tears coming thick and fast. I try to concentrate on my breathing, feeling the rush of a panic attack pinching at my skin.

I'm not sure when I register the presence sitting beside me, but I can smell his cologne.

"They will find him."

His words only make me cry harder.

But James doesn't once try to move away. He just sits beside me and listens to me sob. He does not reach out to try and comfort me and says nothing else besides those four words. He is just there, present and if I could have strung a coherent thought together, I might have believed in that one moment that I actually liked him.

I'm aware of time passing. The footsteps around us, the muffled voices and the click of a computer mouse. But it's when my sobs turn into nothing more than dry muffles against my knees that I finally look up from where I have disposed myself and try to pull myself together.

There must be a plan, I think to myself, logically. There must be something in place for something like this.

I scan the room. My parents are both hunched over a computer screen beside Adam and John, my father's head of security. My mother has her left-hand hand wrapped over her right shoulder as if she's trying to hug herself but from here, I can see the way her nails press into her skin. Queen Katherine sits on the sofa in the farthest part of the safe room besides another steel door. She is twiddling her fingers in her lap looking anxiously between her husband who is on a phone that resembles a brick, his foot tapping against the granite flooring.

James' father Marcus ends his phone call and tosses the brick like phone onto the couch beside his wife. He then meets my eyes and I watch him visibly swallow.

"I know this isn't the right time,"

"Dad," James says, almost like a warning.

"The news has been leaked," Marcus announces and my parents look up from the computer with a look of dread written on their faces. "It's everywhere. The heir to the England throne is MIA."

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