Just a Little Series (Parts 1 - 4) (12 page)

“Jules,” he whispered, almost so quietly
that I didn’t hear him,“when I say go, go. Get out of this house,
and don’t look back.”

“No,” I cried, and my voice shook, “she’ll
shoot you.”

“What are you saying to her?” Hannah asked
Luke, now pointing the gun at him.

I felt him tap one finger on my back. Then
two. When his third tap came, he yelled
GO
, and I ran for
the door.

Before my hand had time to grasp the knob,
an explosion of gunfire stopped me dead in my tracks, followed by a
loud thud as something shook the floor beneath my feet. My ears
ached as the sound of a second shot enveloped the room.

I turned to see Derek fighting his sister
for the gun, both of them rolling on the floor. He pinned her on
the ground and struggled to keep her finger from the trigger, but
Hannah wasn’t going down without a fight.

She shot the gun again, this time the bullet
zipping past Derek’s head and embedding itself in the living room
ceiling. I turned to yell for Luke to interfere, but he was no
longer standing where I’d left him. I surveyed the room, but it was
like he’d vanished into thin air.

My eyes fell to the floor, and I suddenly
felt my world start crashing down.

Luke was lying on the carpet near the
struggling siblings, unresponsive as blood spilled from his
chest.

“Luke!” I screamed, running to his side, no
longer concerned about the fight happening between Derek and
Hannah. I fell to my knees and took his face in my hands, tears
falling from my eyes to his as I wept uncontrollably over his
motionless body. “Luke, please. Oh, God, please Luke—”

“Julie,” Derek screamed, still fighting his
sister. “Call 9-1-1.”

I left Luke long enough to run to the phone
and dial the number; most of my screams were slurred,
incomprehensible sentences, but I stressed that Officer Reibeck had
been shot and was unresponsive. I gave the address, threw the
phone, and fell back at his side.

I held his head in my lap, weeping over his
body and pressing down on the wound. Hannah’s first bullet had been
aimed to stop Luke from charging her, and it’d hit him in the chest
just short of missing his heart.

“Luke,” I cried, watching his blood seep
through my fingers as I applied more pressure to his chest. “Luke.
Please, please don’t leave me.” Through jagged breaths and tears, I
tried to find the strength to stay calm. “I love you, Luke. You
can’t leave me. I need you.”

The seconds ticked by, each one slower than
the one before and just when I’d given up hope for any sign of
life, Luke’s eyelids flittered open and he looked at me through the
half-open slits.

“Jules,” he whispered, but his voice was
raspy and his breathing was jagged,“I’m sorry.”

“Luke,” I said, still holding him, “stay
awake. There’s an ambulance on the way. They’re going to be here
any second to take you to the hospital. Just hang in there, okay?
Please.”

“Jules,” he said again, his voice weak as
his consciousness faded, “I’m losing a lot of blood.”

“Stay awake,” I said again. “Just listen to
me. Try to keep your eyes open.”

“Julie,” he managed to lift his right arm.
He cupped my face with his hand and squeezed as tight as he could,
but his strength was simply gone. He whispered something again, but
I couldn’t make out his words. He closed his eyes, but his mouth
still moved. I leaned closer to him, hoping to decipher his barely
audible whispers. His eyes opened again, and I leaned in as close
as I could.

“Luke,” I said, my tears falling onto his
cheeks, “I love you, do you hear me? And if you die…”

“I’m not going to die,” he whispered. “I
promise.”

He lifted his head far enough for his lips
to brush mine. With tears streaming down my cheeks and across our
lips, I reluctantly eased into his kiss. When I felt his strength
slipping away, I tried to pull back, but he held me as close as he
could and parted his lips, allowing for our kiss to deepen.

When he couldn’t find the strength to carry
on, I pulled away from him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He
closed his eyes again and managed a faint smile.

The sound of crashing filled the air, and
again it was the gun. But it hadn’t been shot. Derek stood over his
sister’s unconscious body, wielding the handgun as tears filled his
eyes.

“Derek?” I watched Hannah’s body for a few
long beats, noticing only a slight movement in her chest.

“I knocked her out,” he said as if he
couldn’t believe what he’d done. “She’s unconscious.” He dropped
the gun to the floor and rushed to my side.

Luke turned his head away as his breathing
became more and more shallow. The warmth of his breath subsided.
The heavy movement in his chest desisted. But the blood kept
pouring, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

As I heard the faint sound of sirens in the
distance, I ran my fingers through Luke’s hair, crying over his
still body.

“Luke, please,” I begged, “please don’t
leave me.”

Derek kneeled next to Luke, grabbing his
wrist and feeling for a pulse. He leaned down and pressed his ear
to Luke’s bloody chest, and after a few faint seconds, looked back
at me with tears welling in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Julie,” he said. “He’s
gone.”

Just a Little Series | Part 3

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, October 27

“I was elected chairman of the dance
committee,” I watched the ground with a broken stare. “The Fall
Ball is scheduled for next Saturday. I’ll probably just go
alone.”

I scooted forward in the grass with my legs
crossed over one another, my knees gracing the engraved stone in
front of me. I shook my head and absorbed the reality of the
conversation, and it seemed far too morbid for comfort.

“You know that feeling when you’re driving
down the road, and you arrive at your destination, but you can’t
remember for the life of you how you got there?” I slowly drew in a
breath to fill my lungs with the frigid autumn air. “Obviously you
found your way, you got there safely, but… the whole idea of
how
you actually arrived is a mystery even to you?”

I leaned back to reposition myself, pressing
my hands down on the dewy grass and clutching the wet blades
between each finger. It was something so simple, something so easy
to take for granted: the ability to touch… to feel… to make a
connection. How quickly I’d learned not to ignore the magnitude of
having something to hold.

“That’s how life has felt up to this point;
just one case after another of highway hypnosis. Here I am, sitting
right in front of you, making small talk about a stupid dance, but
the
how
and
why
of it is still too hard to
comprehend, so I just shut it out.”

I let my eyes wander for a few brief
moments. The grave was small and decorated, nestled at the back
corner edge of the cemetery just below the shade of a nearby oak
tree. A rickety wooden fence separated the cemetery from the thick
forest on the neighboring plot of land. Leaves cascaded from the
giant oak as the wind picked up, and I watched each one as they
descended to the ground.

The air was frigid, and yet there I sat,
freezing as I talked to no one who could actually hear me.

“I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit,” I kept
a firm grasp on the grass beside me. “I could lie and say I’ve been
busy. Truth is I’ve been putting this off for as long as I possibly
could.”

My cheeks burned as the wind gained
momentum; it whistled as it taunted my golden locks and forced the
orange leaves off the ground and into a free-flowing dance. It was
beautiful. Even now, through all my emotions, I appreciated the
beauty of nature’s simplicity.

“I’m sorry,” I said for what felt like the
hundredth time since I’d arrived at the cemetery. “I’m all over the
place today. It’s just that there are so many things I regret never
saying to you,” I watched the leaves follow the current back to the
ground, and I took that moment to find my breath. “I don’t really
know where to start.” I bit my lip to bite back a sob that lingered
deep in my throat, but the emotion fought to overcome me. “I really
hope you know how much I love you and how much I truly miss
you.”

I closed my eyes, and the extra weight of my
eyelids forced the pent-up tears down my cheeks.

“Every day,” I recognized the weakness in my
voice as tears glossed over my eyes. “I wonder what our lives
would’ve been like if you were still here. Would it be easier?
Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t fully convinced. Nothing had ever been
easy. My life had always had its share of challenges, but somehow I
knew better than to give up hope for change. It seemed as if no
matter what I put forward, no matter how hard I tried, the problems
kept on snowballing. “Maybe if you hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t be
stuck in this place, this constant game of back and forth,
wondering how I went from sitting on top of the world to losing
everything I ever loved.”

Tears spilled over the rim of my eyes. I
watched as my warm breath turned to fog with each jagged breath I
let go. I wiped my tears with the backside of my glove and pulled
my knees to my chest.

“I don’t know how the afterlife works,” I
said, still fighting to bite back the tears. “Maybe you can hear me
now, maybe you can’t. But if you’re listening, you should know that
I’m okay. I’m not great; I’m not even close to great. I’m just
okay
. And I only came here today because I wanted to tell
you again, in case you’re listening…that I haven’t forgotten about
you. I still miss you, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to be in
your arms again, if only for a second.”

I rested my chin on my knees and hugged
myself tighter. The tears felt like frozen drops of ice on my
cheeks, but I couldn’t bring myself to wipe them away.

“I have somewhere I have to be now,” I
whispered. I rolled forward on my knees and knelt before the
headstone, running my fingers across the engraved letters. “I love
you,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the smooth granite. “I’ll
never forget what you did for me.”

Saturday, October 27| 8:00 p.m.

“What are
you
supposed to be?” I
stared at my cousin with wide eyes.

Matt’s gray shirt and jeans were smeared
with dirt, ripped and torn, and covered with dry blood. Bloodied
scrapes, wounds, and scars—all made from wax and make-up, masked
his typically flawless face.

“The living dead,” he opened his mouth to
expose his dirt-stained teeth.

“That’s disgusting.”

“Why thank you, Your Highness,” he mocked,
bowing before me.

I smoothed my lace gloves and adjusted my
tiara before turning full circle to let the beautiful, white gown
sweep the ground.

The event was off to quite a start. Charlie
had invited everyone in the neighborhood to his annual Halloween
costume party. He’d supplied every kind of food and snack
imaginable, karaoke entertainment on the front porch, outdoor games
in the yard, and a bonfire at the back edge of the property. As
always, Matt took his costume far too seriously. This year I was
determined to strip him of his reigning title of
Best
Dressed
.

“Mock me if you must,” I pursed my lips.
“But you and I both know that you’re just jealous that you could
never be this breathtaking—”

“Woo!” Detective Bruno walked between us to
join my uncle near the roaring bonfire. “I think Miss Julie has
spent one too many hours down at the station, Charlie. You hear the
mouth on that girl? I haven’t met someone with an ego that big
since Trigger—”

“Watch it,” Luke stepped up to warm his
hands. He flashed a coy smile in my direction, winked, and turned
back to the fire.

“I thought you couldn’t make it,” I said
from across the fire pit, and I kept my voice calm as I watched the
smoke climb higher.

“Plans change,” his eyes darted up to
Detective Bruno. The two men stared at each other for a few long
beats, sparking a few uncertain glances from the rest of the group.
Bruno twisted his lips, and Luke simply shrugged. Still, their eyes
remained fixed on each other’s as the next few seconds crept by. It
was hard to be certain, but judging by the look of things, it
seemed as though something was going on between them. Something was
definitely
off
.

After Bruno broke the stare, he, Charlie,
and Matt broke off from the group and headed for the house. With no
one else in sight, I sprinted around the fire and threw my arms
around Luke’s neck. A heavy groan escaped from deep in his throat
as his body tensed against mine.

“Careful, kid—”

“Right,” I backed away. I let my eyes fall
on his chest, but then I quickly looked back to him. “Did I hurt
you?”