41. It’s not true… it can’t be true
IT’S NOT TRUE… IT CAN’T BE TRUE
The explosion rocked us forward, gunfire ricocheted off the van walls as we crouched down for cover.
I grabbed the pistol off my waist, pulling the slide back and rushing forward into the chaos, no longer able to sit by and wait.
Heavily armed men shot across the expansive lawn as heat from the blast melted the snow around the hole in the wall.
Bullets whined and whizzed past as I returned fire; something caught my eye.
A poorly groomed man covered in dirt started walking from the hole in the wall.
He was carrying something in his arms. Snow crunched under my boots as I ran toward the mansion.
My eyes caught the blood smeared across his chest. The man had dropped to his knees.
I ran forward. No, it’s not her. The thought came fast. It wasn’t her.
My breath caught in my lungs as I surged forward to confirm if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
There was too much red. It soaked into the white as if it didn’t belong. My feet gave way as the red spread. Violent shades of maroon that leeched out around the man in an uneven arc. Everything else disappeared. The gunfire, the shouting, the cold. All I could see was him.
Some string holding me to reality snapped when my eyes registered the body in his arms. The blonde hair, caked with dirt and blood.
“Nooooooo!” The scream tore from my lips in disbelief. I stared forward into green eyes that mirrored my own fractured heart.
Hands pulled me up, pulled me away. Cole’s face grabbed mine. Words formed on his lips, but I couldn’t hear. It all sounded too far away. Static, like a radio turned too far up.
My eyes stayed glued to the man. To the girl.
My butterfly. Gone.