CHAPTER 13 THE DEAD KIDS
Dane moved listlessly, each step a monumental effort, dragging himself toward the tree.
The coroner, Frank, led the way, his silhouette a grim guide against the pale moonlight, with Detective Jordan a silent shadow behind them.
Beneath Dane's heavy boots, the frozen grass crunched, a brittle, foreboding sound that echoed the snapping of his own sanity in the frigid, desolate air.
The sharp, metallic tang of winter, laced with something else—something cloying and sickeningly sweet, like crushed wildflowers and iron—pierced his nostrils, a scent he knew, with chilling certainty, would forever be etched into the darkest corners of his memory, irrevocably bound to this night of unspeakable horror.
His sinuses ached, a dull, throbbing pressure behind his eyes, mirroring the expanding agony in his chest.
Then, the tree gave way to the unimaginable.
The sight of the children, splayed on the unforgiving ground—naked, broken, their delicate forms twisted into grotesque parodies of human agony—shattered something fundamental within Dane.
A primal scream clawed at the back of his throat, but no sound escaped.
His entire being seized, a violent convulsion that threatened to buckle his knees.
He wrenched his gaze away, the world tilting, a wave of nausea cresting in his stomach.
When he’d first stumbled upon the scene, shielding Angel from its full depravity, he'd only caught glimpses, flashes of a nightmare that had nevertheless clawed its way into his very soul, leaving him hollowed out and raw.
But this… this was an intimacy with horror he hadn't prepared for.
The stark, undeniable reality of their butchered, violated bodies, the children they had loved with a fierce, protective devotion, was a blow that stole his breath, leaving only a cold, echoing void.
“Take a moment,” Frank’s voice, a surprising balm of genuine sympathy, cut through the suffocating silence.
It was a kindness that only made the dam inside Dane threaten to burst. He pressed his hand to his eyes, the pressure so hard that phantom stars exploded behind his eyelids.
His throat constricted, a knot of raw grief and bile, and his chest felt like it was being crushed by an unseen weight.
He swallowed, a dry, rasping sound, desperate to push back the scalding tears that burned behind his eyelids, threatening to spill over.
Maddy… Maddy was like his own little brother.
He couldn't have loved him more if they shared the same blood. And Savannah…
Savannah. Her name was a silent scream in his mind.
Everyone’s darling, a whisper of sunshine and resilience, so achingly fragile, yet forged with an inner strength that defied her years.
She was the quiet anchor Maddy had desperately needed, and he, in turn, was her unyielding shield.
The thought of their vibrant lives, snuffed out with such brutal, casual cruelty, ripped through him.
Fuck . He shoved the heels of his palms into his damp, burning eyes, a ragged, guttural sound tearing from his throat, a sound that was more animalistic groan than human breath.
This isn’t fair—it isn’t FUCKING FAIR! The words screamed in the echoing chamber of his mind, raw and visceral.
The innocent get butchered while the fucking monsters win?
He choked back curses, bitter and acrid, aimed at a God who had, so many times before, forged miracles from their miseries, spun hope from trauma.
Had they received their allotted miracles, a lifetime’s worth, and this…
this was the desolate wasteland left behind when the well ran dry?
The thought was a chilling, blasphemous whisper, a betrayal of everything he had once believed.
He forced himself to inhale, the cold air burning his lungs, then exhaled slowly, a long, shuddering sigh that tasted of despair.
He scrubbed his face roughly, wiping away the hot tracks of tears, before clearing his throat, a dry, clicking sound.
Turning back, the grotesque display of the dead children slammed into him again, a phantom fist to his sternum, stealing the air from his lungs.
Still, he didn't retreat. He couldn't. There was no fucking way the boys, shattered and reeling, could bear this burden.
Not Cole, whose quiet strength was already stretched thin.
And Devlin… the man was already carrying the weight of the world; this final, crushing horror shouldn't be laid upon him too.
It had to be Dane. He was the one who had to look, to witness, to remember.
A raw sniff, another ragged exhale, and Dane offered a curt nod to the coroner, a silent command to proceed.
Frank, his face a mask of somber professionalism, knelt beside the bodies.
The air thickened, heavy with unspoken dread, as he carefully, agonizingly slowly, removed the cloth bags obscuring their heads.
Dane’s eyes squeezed shut, a desperate, futile attempt to ward off the inevitable, to keep the last shreds of sanity intact.
No one spoke. The silence was absolute, suffocating, broken only by the frantic hammering of his own heart against his ribs.
No one pressured him, no one rushed him.
They waited, a grim, patient vigil, while he wrestled with the demons in his mind, gathering the fractured remnants of his courage to finally look the nightmare in the face.
A shaky, tortured breath hitched in his throat, and Dane’s eyelids fluttered open, heavy as grave-slabs.
The innocent, violated faces swam before him, distorted by the fresh torrent of tears that immediately welled, blurring their features into a horrifying, indistinguishable canvas of suffering.
He blinked, hard, and the scalding tears spilled down his cheeks, tracing cold paths on his numb skin.
He blinked again, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes until his vision cleared, the horrific details snapping into sharp, unbearable focus.
He stared, unblinking, at the dead children, his fractured mind desperately, agonizingly, struggling to reconcile the grotesque reality before him with the faces he knew, the laughter he remembered.
“Dane…” Jordan’s voice, a low rumble of concern, broke the spell, his hand a tentative weight on Dane’s arm.
But the words, the touch, were distant, muted.
It took a full, agonizing minute for the truth, the real shock, to fully register, to claw its way through the protective layers of grief and disbelief.
And then it hit him, a physical blow that sent him staggering back, a violent jerk that nearly pitched him off balance.
The coroner, Frank, had risen to his feet, his gaze fixed on Dane, his brow furrowed with a dawning apprehension.
Dane’s own eyes, wide and unseeing, felt as though they were bulging from their sockets.
This… This isn’t real. The thought was a frantic, collapsing dam.
I’m hallucinating… the trauma, it’s… it’s fucking with me.
A cruel, elaborate trick of his shattered mind.
But the insidious tendrils of reality began to coil around him, tightening, squeezing, as the twisted, malevolent joke of it all stared him in the face, mocking his grief, his certainty.
It was a grotesque masquerade, a perversion of death itself.
Dane reeled back another step, his feet slipping on the treacherous, icy grass, the world spinning precariously. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto his ass, the jarring impact barely registering. His eyes remained fixed, unblinking, on the dead teens, now seen with a new, horrifying clarity.
Detective Jordan and Frank were instantly at his side, strong hands gripping his arms, hauling him back to his feet. “Dane?” Jordan began, his voice laced with confusion, “What… what is it?”
“It isn’t…” Dane’s voice was a fractured whisper, barely audible, as if ripped from a throat already shredded by screams. “It isn’t… them.”
The two men exchanged a startled, disbelieving look. “What?” Frank frowned, leaning closer, as if he hadn't heard correctly.
“It isn’t them!” Dane choked, the words tearing from him, raw and ragged, as fresh, scalding tears streamed down his face, blurring the world into a painful smear.
He clutched Jordan’s arm, his fingers digging in, desperate.
“It isn’t them. It isn’t them!” The same three words, a broken mantra, the only truth his shattered mind could grasp, repeated over and over, until they lost all meaning, becoming just a desperate sound.
“It isn’t…” He spun away from them, a sudden, desperate burst of energy, and bolted for the cars, his feet slipping and sliding precariously on the slick, frozen grass, but still, he kept his balance.
He slammed into Cole, nearly knocking the man off his feet, his hands gripping Cole’s arms like a drowning man grasping a lifeline.
Dane was openly, gut-wrenchingly sobbing now, his face a mask of utter despair and a strange, terrifying relief.
“It isn’t them, Cole!” he choked out, the words thick with phlegm and tears. “It isn’t them!”
Cole’s eyes, wide and uncomprehending, trembled with a dawning horror. “What…?” he whispered, then, as the words registered, a jolt went through him. He ripped himself from Dane’s grasp and sprinted toward the bodies, his own legs a blur on the treacherous ground.
“Dane?” Devlin’s voice was a strained whisper, cautious, as if afraid to break the fragile tension in the air.
He approached slowly, his face etched with a profound, weary trauma.
The man was already teetering on the precipice, his eyes haunted, his shoulders slumped under an invisible burden.
One more blow, and he would shatter. “What is it?”
Dane buried his face in his hands, his raw sobs tearing through the night, before he lunged forward, pulling the doctor into a crushing, desperate embrace.
His body shook violently, racked by a tremor that seemed to originate from the very core of his being.
He buried his face in Devlin’s hair, breathing in the familiar scent of antiseptic and something uniquely Devlin.
“It isn’t them, Devlin,” he choked out, the words muffled against the doctor’s shoulder, a desperate, broken cry. “It isn’t Savannah and Maddy.”
Devlin froze in his arms, every muscle locked, his breath catching in his throat, a silent, agonizing gasp.
He slowly, stiffly, pulled back, his eyes dark with unshed tears and profound exhaustion, looking at the two boys teetering on the edge of utter collapse.
“What… are you…” His voice was a strangled rasp, his throat closing, the words dying before they could fully form.
“Are you… sure? ” The question was a desperate, fragile hope, a plea against the impossible.
“I am,” Dane cried, the confirmation a fresh wave of agony and perverse relief. “I am. It’s not them. It’s not…”
As if compelled by an unseen force, needing to witness this new, terrifying reality for himself, Devlin tore his gaze from Dane and stumbled toward the bodies.
Cole was already there, fallen to his knees, a silent, statuesque figure of despair, simply staring, unmoving, at the dead children.
Dane followed, his legs still unsteady, drawn by the same morbid fascination, the same desperate need to confirm the nightmare within the nightmare.
Devlin dropped beside Cole, his face a mask of utter disbelief, his eyes wide and hollow.
“It isn’t them,” Devlin whispered, the words a shaky, disembodied sound, as if he were speaking from a vast, echoing void, his mind struggling, failing, to process this new, horrifying twist of fate.
The initial grief had been a crushing weight; this new reality was a sickening, dizzying plunge into an unknown abyss of morbid relief.
Cole didn’t say anything; he just stared with a blank expression in his eyes.
After a moment, Devlin crawled to his feet and glanced at Dane. No words were necessary. The two men hastily returned to the cars.
“Angel? Baby?” Dane knelt before his young husband, taking his hands and pressing them to his lips.
“Baby, look at me. Listen to me.” The boy stared through him, distant, as if he had gone somewhere where the nightmare couldn’t reach him.
Dane cupped his face. “Angel,” he choked.
“It isn’t them. The bodies… it isn’t Maddy and Savannah.
” He pulled Angel into his arms and pressed his lips to his ear.
“Maddy isn’t… gone, baby… that isn’t his body. ”
At the other car, Devlin desperately tried to reach Abel as both boys remained disconnected, their faces etched with fear and confusion, their breaths shallow and trembling. The weight of trauma bore down on them, leaving them paralyzed by memories of pain and loss too overwhelming to confront.