Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Maisie
I collapsed to the floor in a heap. My legs could no longer hold me up. Tears cascaded down my face. There was screaming in my head, or maybe that was me wailing for the injustices of life.
The phone I previously held in my hand was gone. I had either dropped it or someone had taken it away as grief consumed me.
My brother was dead. The man who I had finally gotten to see again after so many years was taken away from me in the most savage way possible.
A gunshot to the stomach according to Hendrix.
He was a hero though. He died protecting Hendrix's friend Aaron, another man I knew well. A man whose mother visited me regularly at the bakery. She would be spared this terrible pain because of my brother. And now I was forced to feel it instead.
Life wasn't fair. The good people didn't always make it out alive. And some died way too young.
I don't know how long I sat on the floor of my house crying. Annalee and Owen had opted to stay with me while the team went to rescue Olivia and Sarah.
That was another life lost. Sarah had died before Hendrix’s team even touched down in Wichita, and because of that, my niece, my poor sweet niece who I had yet to meet, was now an orphan. In such a short period of time, she’d lost not one but two parents in a brutal fashion.
I couldn't help but feel responsible. Their death was on my hands. I continued to look into things when I should've just left well enough alone. How would I explain to my niece that I was the reason she would grow up without parents? How would I explain that the person she should be angry at was her own flesh and blood? I couldn't begin to figure out how I was going to make things up to her. There was just no way.
Owen tried to talk to me.
Annalee tried to comfort me.
I didn't want, nor did I deserve, either.
I wanted my brother back. I wanted to reverse the last week. I wanted things to go back to before Annalee came into my shop. To before Walter threatened Annalee with a gun.
I wanted to take back stabbing the man. That made me an awful person because it would've meant Annalee could've been hurt but that was the catalyst to everything else. If that had never happened, I never would've been tempted to run. Hendrix wouldn't have stopped me and he never would've looked into my past.
So much could've been different if I hadn't acted on impulse.
Stupid reckless behavior. My parents always said it would get my brother in trouble. Too bad they were preaching to the wrong child.
I was the impulsive one. I was reckless. I wanted to be like my brother so bad and look where it got me?
Matthew was dead and I would never be the same again.
I wanted Hendrix. I needed him here. I needed him to tell me this was all a big joke and I would wake up tomorrow back in my apartment prepared to start my day before the sun was up. I wanted to bake Ms. Dixie’s lavender cupcakes and Kati’s favorite crumb cake.
I wanted my old life back even if it meant I didn't get Hendrix just yet. Because then I wouldn't have so many deaths on my conscience.