I hold my breath as my jaw drops open. A silent scream in solidarity dances along the tip of my tongue. More blood leaks from his mouth, slowly falling onto the floor. An almost black puddle begins to form, slowly consuming the wood below it.
In the distance, you can hear the sirens as emergency personnel make their way to the building.
“It’ll be okay,” the woman stutters out, smiling at the man as tears shower from her eyes. “Do you hear that, baby? They’re coming. It’s okay.”
No one stops her, but we all know the truth. That’s too much blood. Too much to grant anyone hope. If he’s not already dead, he will be soon.
‘Hey,” a voice calls out to me, although it sounds like it was meant for someone else’s ears. Everything feels so far away, likeI’m not actually here, like I’m just someone standing by and watching this all unfold.
“Hey!” The voice echoes itself, louder this time. “Nova, we need to go.”
I slowly blink and turn my head to the source of the noise. Saint looks back at me, fear spread across his face. “Come on, it’s okay.” He whispers as he tugs on my arm. As if sending my body into autopilot my feet begin to move, carrying me behind him. Luke takes up the back of us, following right on my heels.
I continue to aimlessly follow until the three of us are piling into Saint’s truck. It had begun to rain, and the streetlights distort inside of the droplets clinging to the windows.
“Fuck man!” Saint yells out, slamming down on the wheel with his fists. I turn my attention forward to see that we’re now stopped at a red light. The street seems so empty. “You said everything was all good.”
“He said he’d done it before!” Luke argues from the back seat. The words tumble around in my mind, slowly conjoining to make a bigger picture.
“What did you just say?” I whisper, worried if I was to speak in a normal voice I’d end up yelling. I twist in my seat, my eyes burning into Luke’s. He looks frazzled, his normally perfectly combed hair a mess. The top button to his shirt has come undone, allowing me a view of his reddened chest.
He rubs his hands up his face, gripping onto his hair as if he’s trying to come to terms with it all. “He said he'd done it before. I told him it was top tier stuff. He promised.” The last sentence falls from his mouth with a rushed tone. I watch as his eyes widen with fear. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Play crash by EDEN
“Did you know?” I ask Saint as I sit on the edge of his bed. We dropped Luke off at home, and without another word Saint brought us here. He had left me in the living room before disappearing into the bathroom. It wasn’t until I heard the shower running that I knew I would be waiting for a while.
All my time consisted of staring blankly at his bedroom wall. Her face kept flashing in my mind. The sound of her wails consuming any independent thought I had tried to create. All I could think about was her. Her grief. It had been splayed out so devastatingly beautiful, and like emotional vultures, none of us could look away.
“Did I know what?” He asks back with a sigh. He looksso tired.
“That Luke was dealing?”
He crosses the room, opening a drawer and pulling out a pair of sweatpants. He keeps his back turned to me as he responds. “Yes.”
“That’s it?”
I watch as his bare shoulder muscles tighten with unease. The black lines of his tattoos pull with the tension. “We all have our vices. Luke supplies mine.” Saint drops the towel, making quick work of getting the pants on."There's nothing else to say about it."
“What?” I question out of shock. “What vice?”
He huffs an aggressive breath of air from his nose, turning to look at me with a glare. The sight reminds me of when I first got home, all the harbored anger pouring out of him. It makes me feel small, admissible.
“Fentanyl.” He states it so bluntly it takes me a moment to digest his answer.
“You’re not serious?”
“I am.”
“Saint…” the pleas for him to stop rise up my throat so quickly I can barely contain the need to hold a single person intervention. Jasmine, her dad, the couple at the concert. All the deaths before them and the ones to come after.Saint can’t become another statistic. Not when he has finally found me again.
“Don’t.” He barks out, fully spinning his body to look at me. “You don’t get to tell me what’s right or wrong for me.”
Out of instinct I scoot to the top of the bed, squeezing myself against the wall to create more distance between us.
“Jesus Christ, Nova,” he begins as he walks over the bedroom door. “I’m not going to hurt you.Not everyone is out to get you.”
Shame coats me as I watch the pain on his face blossom. “I know.” I whisper back.
