I crawled up beside Jude, ignoring the choked protests from Moon. I reached up, my arm shaking as I wrapped my hand around Jude’s wrist. And then I tugged. Hard. As hard as I could, slamming his hand to the floor and keeping it there.
He tried to toss and turn, bucking against Moon. When Moon fell forward, wrapping his hands tighter around Jude’s neck, I understood. I may not have been a coward, but I couldn’t watch it happen.
One of us wasn’t going to walk out of this alive, and I refused to traumatize myself by watching that happen.
Keeping my hold on Jude’s hand, I pressed my forehead against the floor. I heard some grunts and groans of pain from Moon. Maybe Jude was still fighting back. Maybe it hurt his hands to do what he was doing. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to know.
I closed my eyes and listened. As sirens started blaring outside the apartment, as Moon hissed through his teeth, as Jude gurgled nonsensical threats. I listened as everything started to sound so much further away, my head starting to swim with chaos and unease. I listened as Jude took his last breath, his exhale long and slow. I listened as the living room was bathed in silence, and Moon began to cry.
I had never heard Moon cry like that before.
An army of footsteps reached our front door, with what seemed like a dozen hundred men yelling out orders. In the midst of it all, I only recognized one.
Crescent was here. Jude was gone. And my wings, after being bent and broken, after shedding almost all of their feathers, after having been torn from my back for nearly a decade, finally unfurled. I was fuckingsoaringinto the dark pits of uncertainty.
Chapter Thirty-Six
At least threecop cars were surrounding the apartment, all of their lights mixing into a bright haze of pure chaos. I barely parked the car, immediately opening the door and running out into the parking lot. To the right of my car was Mom and Dad’s RV, which had to mean Moon had gotten here earlier than he’d expected him to.
When I looked up, I realized the swarm of cops was headed right for my door.
Elio.
I ran, racing toward them, panting for breath. “Wait!” I yelled at them. “What’s going on?”
One cop stayed behind, holding his hand up to me, while four others burst through my front door, yelling orders as they went. “Hold on, hold on. What do you think you’re doing? It isn’t safe.”
“What the fuck do you mean? That’s my fucking apartment! My boyfriend and brother are in there!”
An ambulance pulled in, screeching to a halt. People were coming out of their doors, looking around at the quickly escalating scene. “Listen, son, we got reports of screaming and gunshots coming from your apartment, okay?”
Gunshots?“What? No, no, you have to let me through.”
“I can’t do that right now. Let’s just go sit in my car and talk things through—hey!”
I didn’t let him finish before bolting for the door, running past car after car and neighbor after neighbor. Some people yelled at me from behind, but I didn’t listen. Elio was in there, and I needed to be there too.
The moment I reached the entryway, I froze. Something in my brain cut all communication with my body, anchoring my feet to the ground. The door was wide open, and a few policemen were taking stock of the situation, just as I was. I could hear feet behind me, along with the chaos of confused conversation and angry people in uniforms trying to get me to leave.
All of the noise grew muffled as I struggled to make sense of the scene before me. Blood. There was a lot of fucking blood. I walked through, looking to the right, my jaw hanging open as I tried to take it all in.
There, lying against the bookshelf, was Sarah, but her eyes were closed, her body was contorted, and I knew without being able to confirm it that she was nothing but a shell anymore. My gasp died in my throat as I turned my head to the other side, trailing my eyes up from the motionless feet on the floor, roaming until I realized what I was looking at.
Moon was slumped on the floor, curled in on himself as his entire body shook with sobs. Beside him was Jude,lifeless, beaten, and bloody. Jude’s eyes were still wide open, staring at nothing. There was a dim gloss over them; his mouth parted on his last breath.
And then there was Elio, my Sunshine, his forehead against the floor with one hand curled into a fist beside Jude’s. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, all the noise rushing back in. It was loud. So fucking loud.
“I don’t see a gun, boss!” A policeman yelled from our bedroom.
Ourbedroom. Our fuckingbedroom.The same room Elio and I spent our nights curled up against each other in our safe bubble of happiness. It was ruined. Everything was fucking ruined.
I ran toward Elio, kneeling beside him. “Baby?”
He whimpered. A noise I hadn’t heard in so long, I’d forgotten how heartbreaking it was. I wanted to scoop him up in my arms and take him with me to a new place. A safe one, far away from the horrors we were surrounded by.
“Moon?” I called out to my brother, but I didn’t get a response. Tears started to blur my eyes, turning the blood into squiggly lines of pure despair. I turned my head, looking at the bookshelf. Though I knew it was pathetic and pointless to do so, I still called out to her. “Sarah?”
No response.
