Or rather, my nightmares. The only dreams I’d ever had all included Reagan, and she was now gone. Those earlier tears returned, but they wouldn’t fall from my eyes. I wouldn’t allow them. I tore my gaze away from the screen and over to the small railing that was all that separated me from death and the opportunity to be reunited with my soulmate.
“Anamchara.” Her name was ripped from my lungs as I struggled to breathe.
“Garmhac, you’re to return to Dublin immediately,” I heard my grandfather say.
“Fuck you,” I yelled to him and the universe, as pain filled every cell of my being.
He’d killed the most beautiful thing in my life. Hell, the only good thing, too. Only, it might’ve been at his order, but the blame lay with no one but me. I’d been warned and still tested the most powerful man I’ve ever known, and my soulmate was now lost to me forever.
My grandfather let out a string of curses, but I ignored them all as I stayed on my knees and lowered my head to the ground. Some time elapsed, although I had no idea of how much, before three men approached me. I tried to fight them off, but they were much too strong for me to handle alone in my devastated state. I knew from their thick accents that they were my grandfather’s men, and I gave up the fight. I had no life worth living without Reagan, so the men could do their worst to me now. It didn’t matter. Nothing ever would.
I’d hated leaving Cillian in the middle of the night, but I had been unable to sleep as I’d tossed and turned. Once or twice, I even got up out of bed so as not to wake him with my incessant movements. As happy as I was to leave and start a life with the man I loved, I couldn’t just leave my mother and sister with some hastily scribbled note. They’d deserved to have an actual face to face goodbye, and it was something I had to do or else I would never be able to fully move forward with Cillian.
Hoping he wouldn’t be too upset, I ordered a ride share and spent the entire ride back to Summit Crest Preparatory in silence. Thankfully, the driver had said very little until we’d reached the campus. “I wonder what’s going on here,” he said as he slowed his speed.
It was then that I looked up and noticed several police cars, as well as an ambulance in front of the school. The police cruisers went past the visitor’s entry and down to the cabins and cottages, and as my eyes followed them, I realized whose place it stopped at.
“Let me out,” I said to him, especially when I realized he’d never make it past the police tape strewn haphazardly in front of me, stretching from one tree to another to another.
I quickly opened the door as soon as the car came to a stop. “Do you want me to wait?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered before fleeing from the vehicle.
I raced over to the area patrolled by at least four officers. As I tried to duck up under some of the yellow tape, one of the men grabbed my arms. “Whoa, you can’t go past here.”
“I live here,” I said to him, but the other that was closest to him just shook his head at me.
“Ma’am, there’s been a homicide. No one can get past here, student or no student.”
“Please, I have to see what happened. Who was it? Can you not even tell me that much?”
“I’m sorry,” the first officer said. “We don’t have those details. We’ve just been informed that there was a homicide, with multiple victims, and to secure the area.”
“I have to get back there. Please, I promise I won’t impede the investigation or touch the crime scene. I just need?—”
“I’m sorry, you need to leave,” the other officer said to me.
I threw my hands up and backed away from the scene. I quickly pulled out my cell phone and tried to dial my mother. If I could hear her voice, I could calm down. The phone rang and rang until finally going to voicemail. Deciding to wake my sister, I tried her number and got the same response.
Fear no longer crept up inside of me. It was now gripping me, and I felt myself grow faint. The stress of not knowing was one thing, but there was another reason for this nausea. Ignoring it, I racked my brain as I tried to think of how to get past these cops. From the years I had lived here, there were several ways to get on and off the campus, most of which Cillian and I used to sneak around with one another.
Cillian.How I wished he was here right now. If he was, I could imagine him throwing his name around and getting far different results than me. I had no idea what the Brannington name meant in these parts, mostly because it never mattered to me. His family obviously had incredible wealth, as this school was the priciest in the entire state, if not the nation.
I would need to fill him in on all of this later, but right now, I had to find out why neither my mother nor sister were answering, why police were crawling around our cabin, and why the officers had mentioned a homicide. I knew that to be murder, and as bile rose in my throat, I hurried off to the mass of trees to the left of me, then stopped to hurl.
I’d been so excited to see Cillian last night for the first time since summer began that I had barely touched my dinner. After, we had sex, gotten married, then spent the night making love. There was very little contents to throw up, so it was quick. After, I wiped my sleeve against my mouth, then crept farther into the heavily forested area.
I knew this route better than anyone ever should, and it didn’t take me long to get down to the cottage where I lived. The police presence was even heavier around front, so I stayed to the back of it. As I tried to get into the back door, the damn thing was locked. Since I had not anticipated having to reenter it last night, I had locked it behind me. Now, I couldn’t even sneak in this way.
Maybe I could at least put my mind at ease by seeing my mother and twin through one of the windows. Hoping to do that, I scaled the side of the house, then slowly made my way down to the one that would basically show much of the small place. When I peered through the window, all I could see were officers blocking any chance I had at a peek.
Annoyed, and even more fearful because of what I had heard the other policeman at the school entrance say, I decided to testmy luck with these others instead. I was already on the property, so hopefully I could at least go inside and check on my family for myself. I moved closer to the edge of the cottage and had been about to make my presence known when a voice stopped me cold in my tracks.
“Deceased adult female and deceased teen female,” I heard a woman say to another.
“Nooooooooo,” I cried out, and both turned to look at me.
“Mamma...I need to see her.”
