MY IMMORTAL

Rupture

The scene was horrific forcing me to take a rapid shaky breath. Niall had pulled himself across the floor somehow so that he was lying next to Connor, his hands and feet tied. He was screaming through his gage and covered in Connors blood. I cut the cable tie around his feet and then his hands. He pulled the gag from his mouth. There was nothing suppressing his anguish now and my chest tightened around my lungs and heart.  I jumped up and ran to grab out a hand full of tea towels from the draw. I ran back and slid on my knees for the last meter or so. I put the towels and pushed them hard against Connors open throat.  I was talking now but I wasn't really aware of what I was saying. Niall was sobbing.  He was pulling Connor into his lap and making my task more difficult, but I couldn't bring myself to stop him.  I knew it was no use.  He had lost far too much blood. It was all over him, Niall and I.

"Niall, push the towels, slow the bleeding," I instructed and somehow, he understood.  He did as I told him.

"Connor. You'll be OK. You're going to be OK. We'll get through this mate.  You'll see." He was rambling.

I pulled my phone from my pocket again and called for an ambulance. I was giving them details standing next to the terrifying heart-wrenching scene when Dad, Bear, Scotty, and Darren burst through the door. I looked up and pointed upstairs, my eyes welling and spilling over with relief and grief all at once too overwhelming to hold in anymore. "There is another one upstairs, I think I might have broken his knee or something." My voice was like broken glass, scratchy and shattered. It reflected how I felt. Dad and Bear were with Niall and Connor before I could blink, and Scotty and Darren headed upstairs together.

"I didn't move fast enough." I admonished myself.  I couldn't focus on anything else. "I should have moved faster.  I should have been able to stop this.  There were only two of them.  You have trained me to do better than this. I should have moved faster..."

"Cassie..." Bear tried to interrupt my rambling. "You were right to try and wait.  Cassie..." I heard him but I couldn't register it.  I was still cursing myself.

Just then Scratch and Zayne walked in assisting Liam. Zayne took one look at me and left Liam with Scratch and headed over to me.

"If I had come in, I might have been able to take his gun.  Maybe I should have gone for the guy with the knife first." The phone slipped from my hands and hit the ground.

"Panda," Bear shouted at me. He had my face cupped in his hands. "Now is not the time. You need to pull it together kid. The team needs you on point now. Jobs not done yet."

Niall looked up at me. He finally came out of his own pain bubble and became aware of his surroundings again. Zayne picked up the phone and pushed it into Bears chest. Bear let me go and started talking into the phone while he went back to helping Dad, they pulled Connor away from Niall.  Connor was grey and his lips blue. Synaptic.  His life-blood was pooled thick and cooling around and all over Niall. I couldn't take my eyes from his expression, it told me everything.  He knew.  He knew I wasn't there with him now as his EPA and his cold glare told me he was consumed with a sense of betrayal. I didn't think he could have expressed any more pain in his features than a second ago as he held his brother watching him die.

"You work for him." His voice carried no sound.  It was barely a whisper. I fell to my knees before him. I couldn't speak. I nodded. He turned away from me and to his brother. He watched in shock and horror.

Zayne knelt behind me and put his hands on each of my shoulders. "Come on ninja girl. Let's get a look at you." His voice was so familiar and warm, full of affection and compassion. He stood me up and walked me over to a kitchen bar stool. I had a few scrapes and bruises and he tended to them with tenderness and sympathy. He spoke softly to me and I hardly registered his words. "You are a force to behold Cassie. I always knew you had this kind of fight in you. You saved his life you know...  Can you tell me exactly what happened?" This was so un-Zayne like. I quietly relayed everything to him like I had watched it on television.  I was removed from it somehow. I felt detached and numb. He watched me as I described the events quietly.  I heard the ambulance and police arrive and I sat on the stool as everything moved around me. They came and tended to Connor, but he was dead. We were all questioned one by one. My clothes were taken and bagged one article at a time. Afterward, they moved me outside to the back of an ambulance and I sat watching everything around me again. Everyone was ushered outside, and the house was marked off as a crime scene. It was all so surreal, and it happened quite quickly but it all seemed so methodical and slow to me. My mind shut down to everything except some music that I heard. The neighbour two doors down had left a stereo playing 'Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls and for some reason, I heard it. For some strange reason, it is what my mind zoned into clinging to it like it was the only thing keeping my feet on solid ground.