Shards of Us (4 page)

Next I think about my parents. It's been two years since th
e robbery that got them killed, but it feels more like an eternity. The robber stole Mom's jewelry, the police said, and shot them both when they tried to stop him. A tragedy, according to the paper. An awful, awful tragedy.

As if they knew any of it.

Finally, my mind drifts back to
Ash. I wonder whether I should call and tell her that Sebastian isn't here, to let her go home and sleep restfully while I spend my night here, staring at the door, like Sebastian would have wanted. Only break the rules if you absolutely have to, is his saying, and I don't really have to break them now. I am fine here, aren't I? Yes, I tell myself. Yes I am. I am fine.

I. am. fine.

So I take one last sip of wine and close my eyes as I sit in the chair, ready to let sleep take me away until morning.
Sebastian will show up later
, I tell myself as I close my eyes.
He will
.

That's when
I hear the gunshot.

And the scream.

In that moment, what I hear isn't the kind of happy-scream you get when someone proposes, or dur
ing a tickle-fight of some sort, or anything, well, positive. This isn't the scream of a small child trying to get attention, either, or the scream of someone calling out to a friend.

No.

This scream is blood-curdling. Ear-splitting. Filled with pure fear. The second I hear it, my whole body freezes up. I shoot out of the chair, my heart hammering furiously in my chest.

The scream
and gunshot are close, it's like they're coming from outside my room, and the realization is a punch in the gut.
Oh shit shit shit
, I think to myself, scrambling for cover. Everything pounds, freezes, hurts. I don't know what to do. What the fuck am I supposed to do in a situation like this? What do I do when there are gunshots and screams right outside my door? My feet go numb. My hands tremble. I take a slow step to the door, listening for the sound of footsteps fading, for any sign to tell me I'm safe, but nothing comes. Everything is silent for one long second, and then, just like that, all hell breaks loose.

There's a grunt, and someone is thrown against the wall beside my door.
Another scream rips through the air. I swear my heart is about to explode out of my chest as the body collides with the wall, almost breaking through it, sending me jumping backward. I hear the crack of a fist connecting with skin, and then someone else is slammed against the wall, closer to the door this time. I jump back again. The fighting continues, and finally my sense start kicking in. I hear another crack as someone is thrown against the wall across the way while I race over to the corner of the room, ducking behind the bed for cover.

The
next thing I know, another gunshot sounds, piercing through the night air. I hear another scream, and then the sound of sobbing. And then, once again, there is nothing.

I cower there,
under the bed, totally frozen. I feel numb. My whole body screams at me that I'm going to fucking die here because someone is killing people
right outside my door
, but I try to ignore it, to try to stay calm, try to focus on my breathing.

Then,
through the silence, there's the crunch of a single footstep, stopping directly in front of my door.

My whole body shakes at that, and I hold my breath, tensing up.
The killer is here
.
Whoever pulled that trigger is about to come inside my room.

But
I don't dare move, or breathe, or do anything to give myself away. So I just crouch there, stock-still, waiting for whoever to leave. I hold my breath as I hear another footstep, drawing closer still. The person pauses, and I hear sobbing from someone out in the hallway. My heart hammers in my chest so hard I swear whoever is there can hear it, but I don't dare move as the sound of the footsteps stops.

Right.

In front of.

My door.

And then, to my absolute horror, the knob turns. I watch, frozen, trying not to cry, as it turns until it clicks, and then the door swings wide open.

The first t
hing I see is the man's boots: dark and placed right outside my door. Then, slowly, I lift my gaze up to his suit pants, then to his tux and black bowtie, then to his square jaw, and then, finally, my gaze settles on those same, icy blue eyes I know all too well.

Sebastian
gives me a small smile as he walks over to the bed. "Ready to begin, angel?" he says.

If my stomach could sink so low that it falls out of my body, mine just did. He keeps a gun trained on someone outside, looking between me and whoever
it is. "Come here," he coos in his sing-song way, but I don't move. I'm rooted in the spot, shaking like crazy, the tears streaming down my face.

When I don't
obey, the smile leaves his face and fury replaces it. Sebastian looks sinister, his nostrils flaring and lips curling into a smirk. "Out.
Now
," he yells, and points a second gun on me.

A sob racks through me, but I have no choice
but to obey. I stand up and walk numbly over to him, trying to process what's going on, why Sebastian,
my
Sebastian, looks like he wants to kill me. My heart keeps on hammering and my blood chills and chills, and I can barely make out anything but the throbbing in my head. I feel my vision starting to fade out, feel the room disappear and everything else leaving me, but I force myself to focus, to take one step after another until, finally, I reach the door.

A
pained smile spreads across Sebastian's lips. "Good, my angel," he coos once I reach him, stroking my hair for just a second. His eyes seem sad, though, almost apologetic, which catches me off guard. "Very good."

Then, he hands me a gun.
A pistol, I think, but I don't have much experience with guns. I take it, my hands still shaking furiously. I don't understand why he's giving it to me, but I'm too scared and confused to question him. I look up to meet his gaze. He looks different than usual. His eyes are hard and fierce, and not in the same loving kind of way. They're angry, almost apologetic.

I swallow hard.

I hear a crash somewhere downstairs, then shouts, and then an earsplitting crack. A gunshot, I think. My legs go weak. Sebastian must hear it too, because he glances down the hall and then looks back at me, his face and voice suddenly urgent.

"Use this
," he says, pointing at the gun he gave.

"For what?" I choke out. I have to force myself to continue breathing. I look at the gun, then him, then back at my feet.

The sounds of people running are approaching. I pray with every fiber of my being that they're cops, but I don't even know anymore. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why the man I thought I trusted just possibly killed someone, and is now looking like he wants to do the same to me.

Sebastian
grabs my arm and shoves me out into the hall. He points at a girl lying limply on the other side of the hall, blood pouring out of a gunshot wound in her leg. Time seems to slow as my gaze settles on the face.

It's Ash.

The bleeding girl is Ash.

A scream escapes me, and I thrash and try to run toward her but
Sebastian holds me back, his grip like iron. My headache grows and I feel sick, so sick, and then everything but the shallow beating of my heart seems to fade away.

Distantly, I hear
Sebastian yell, "Protect her, angel. Men are after us. Bad men. I don't have the resources to bring your friend with us." Out of nowhere, I'm struck by how full of genuine care his voice sounds, but the thought is gone as quickly as it comes.

Shouts fill the air as several armed men race upstairs,
clicking of their safeties. Everything blurs. This whole thing is like a nightmare, and I don't know what to do but stand and shake and stare at Ash while Sebastian moves to the end of the hallway, his gun locked and loaded. "One of the men shot her," I hear him say. "I killed him but she's really banged up. Save her, angel. If these men get her they will give her something worse than death."

My head spins, and my stomach is so queasy and my muscles so rigid that none of
this even feels real anymore. I try to focus on holding up the gun, but I can't even think straight anymore. I feel my mind fading in and out, like my eyes are a camera zooming and unzooming back and forth and back and forth. I just watch Sebastian, watch as he flattens himself against the hall and points his gun at the stairwell, takes a shot at the oncoming me, then steps back and stares at me urgently. His eyes burn into mine for one, single second that feels like an eternity. They are so full of something, something deep and dark and hurt, and it looks like he wants to say a million things to me, but nothing comes out.

Sebastian doesn't say a word. He just stares at me so intensely I swear it bores a hole into my skin, but his
lips don't move. It's like his eyes are apologizing, like he's telling me he already regrets whatever is about to happen, and the thought makes my stomach twist.

Then, just like that, he grunts and looks away
. I gasp for air immediately, because his gaze was so intense I realize I forgot to breathe.

Sebastian
steps out from the cover of the hallway and takes several shots down at the men coming up the stairs, whoever they are. I hear another scream, then the thud of someone falling.

Desperately,
I clutch the gun in my hand and stare back down at Ash, my hands shaking wildly. Ash's eyes are wild and crazed, and she lies there, so limply, the blood rushing out of her body. I see her long blonde hair, the mascara running down her eyes, and the crimson staining her pale skin. I see the fear in her eyes, the way she feels life slipping away from her, and the pain of the thought is almost unbearable.

I crouch down beside her as Sebastian continues to shoot at the oncoming men, tears pouring down my face. I look
at my gun, which I'm holding at the space by the top of the stairs. The safety is off. I know enough about guns to tell. I know how to shoot them too. When I was considering suicide, I taught myself all about them, how they work, but guns always felt too messy. Felt wrong. And they still do.

"It's going to be okay," I whisper to her, but my body is shakin
g so hard that my voice cracks, and I don't believe my own words for a second.

I don't understand what's going on.

I don't understand why Sebastian is shooting people right before my eyes.

And I don't understand why these men want to kill us.

My hand is shaking like mad as I hold the trigger. I hear more people running up the stairs, the barking of orders and sounds of guns being loaded. I know I don't have much time. I know they're almost here.

"They're coming, angel!" Sebastian roars back at me, and his bloodshot eyes meet mine for a single instant. Fear pulses through me as more gunshots go off, and he screams, "We have to go!"

I don’t move, though. My body is shaking so hard and I just keep staring at Ash. Everything starts to fade out, and I'm absolutely paralyzed, unable to move.

"RUN!" he screams
again, taking one last shot at the oncoming men.

But I can't. I can't move. My feet are absolutely rooted in the spot. I clench the gun so hard I swear I'm going to break my hands, and so many tears rush down my face
at once that my whole cheek stings. My vision blurs, but distantly I see Sebastian running over to me, screaming something I can't make out, and I feel myself reaching out to Ash, trying to grab her arm and hold tight to her, but my hand misses.

Before I know what's happening,
Sebastian is behind me, putting something dark over my head and shoving a needle into the back of my neck.

"I won't let them have you," I swear I hear him whisper, but
my ears are ringing so hard now that I can't be too sure.

Ever
ything is dizzy as I slump back into his arms, feeling sick and bleak and empty. Distantly, I feel his arms wrapping around me, his grunts as he drags me somewhere far away. The last thing I remember is the sound of the Beethoven music I put on in room 364, drifting out into the hallway.

And then all I see is blackness.

Chapter Four

I drift in and out of consciousness for hours after that. Or days. Or maybe even weeks. I don't know how long. All I remember is waking up face down in a seat of some sort a while after Sebastian knocked me unconscious. It felt like there was something moving beneath me, as if I were a car, but I can't be too sure. I could see nothing but blurry sunlight for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, and then I was gone, back in a memory.

I'm twenty years old again, running down my old street in the pouring rain. I'd been at a friend's house all day, but her mom told me something
had happened, that I needed to go home now, and I refused to let her drive me because I knew whatever it was, it was bad. And before I realized what I was doing, I'd started running.

I run and run, already crying and choking and gasping for air, already wanting to crumple and let everything else leave me, already knowing something is terribly, terribly wrong.

I can hear the sirens wailing through our once silent neighborhood, the buzz of energy and fear and sadness in the air. It's the dead of night, but everyone is standing outside of their houses, hugging and looking at the house the cars are crowding. My heart sinks.

They're staring a
t
my
house. The house I'd been staying in ever since I failed out college.

Ten cop cars surround my
front yard, and policemen fill the area, bringing evidence and equipment in and out of the house, talking into their radios and putting up yellow tape all around my home.

I keep running. I don't even hesitate. Tears burn my eyes and my heart pounds furiously, but I try to hide it, try to stay hopeful, even though a deep, crushing part of me knows it's really over.

"Ma'am, this is a crime scene," a pudgy cop says when I duck under the yellow tape, forcing my way over to my house. "You can't--"

But I'm already pushing past
him, muttering, "I live here" in between my fits of trembles, and then I hustle inside the house, pushing past a few cops, and look around desperately.

The house is a mess. F
urniture is upturned everywhere--couches, chairs, tables. Shattered glass is spilled across the floor, and torn-up pictures of me and my parents laughing and smiling several years ago litter the ground like they're nothing. And then I notice the drop of crimson on the hardwood floor in front of me, and I look up. I let out a scream as soon as see my parents, on the ground, shot and killed beside the sofa, their hands locked.

Together.

Even in death.

I gasp and cry, and my body feels frozen and numb and hurt and I can barely process what I'm seeing, what this means. Sobs rack through me and I turn away, shaking all over. A detective grabs me and steers me outside, telling me I shouldn't be here, I should wait outside, that I was going to be okay, that
everything
was going to be okay even when I knew it wasn't.

The detective starts turning away and hurries back inside, but I grab her through my tears. "Tell me," I gasp. "Tell me what happened."

Her eyes look sad, so sad, sad for me. "I shouldn't--" she says quietly and tries to brush me off, but I cling to her for dear life, not knowing what else to do.

"Please, tell me," I whisper. My voice sounds so hollow and defeated it doesn't even feel like mine anymore. "Tell me what happened."

She sighs, then locks eyes with me. "It was a robbery," she says. "Your mother's jewelry was reported stolen. Suspect appears to be male. They tried to stop him, but… they couldn't. He had a gun," she adds.

My stomach twists at her words but I manage a nod, whispering, "Thank you."
And then I start shaking all over again, and I collapse into her arms, screaming and crying and telling myself this can't possibly be real, this can’t be happening to me, all night long.

When I wake up next, I
can vaguely hear a door slam outside, feel someone grab my arms and mutter something under their breath. And then I'm being moved away from here, to somewhere outside in the blinding sun. I feel my head loll back, and then I'm back in another memory.

It's t
hree days after the murder. I'm sitting on the rooftop of my old house, closing my eyes and thinking. I think about my dance classes. They're supposed to be my escape, supposed to wash everything else away. The grace of my movements, the way my legs sway every which way, so nimbly, it's all supposed to free me. From what, I don't even know. My thoughts, maybe? Or is it supposed to free me from my depression? Or really, maybe it's just freeing me from myself.

Whatever it is, it hasn't worked. The ache in my heart hasn't gone away, and my parents
are still dying again and again in my mind. I live with my aunt now, but I hardly care for her, and she returns the favor. I hang out here, at the house they died in, because I have nowhere else to go. Because the pain is stronger here, but at least I feel like myself again. At least, when the depression and loneliness overcome me, I can feel like Crystal Knight again. I can feel like the real me, the one person who otherwise couldn't seem farther away.

And today, I'm going to end it
at all.

There
isn't one particular thing that brought me here, or a certain reason why I chose today, or a breaking point that I reached and couldn't keep going on after. It's been much more gradual. I'd been sad for a long time, mainly because my parents were always away on their business trips and I'd never had friends before. But even in the thick of it, I used to cling to the knowledge that my parents were still alive, that I needed to be strong for them, that I needed to keep on pushing, but now that they're gone, who do I need to be strong for anymore?

The answer is nobody.

Nobody.

Nobody.

So for a while, I just sit on the edge of the roof and think. I think about the life I'll be missing out on if I go through with this. I think about the children I'll never have, the friends I'll never meet, the husband I'll never get to know. I think about whether I'll ever even have children if I stay alive past tonight, if I'll ever make friends, if I'll ever have a man in my life, and then I tell myself that of course I won't. Good things don't happen to me; good things
never
happen to me. If I decide to live, I'll spend my life alone, working a dead-end job just to pay the bills, hating myself the whole way through. I'll live my life just to get through the next day, with nothing to looking forward to in between, and that's no way to live at all, right? Next I think about dance, the way it frees me. I think about the tons of performances I've been to, the awards I've received, the applause I've earned. I think about that moment when I'm on stage, when the music plays beside me and everything fades away, because my sense come to life. I think about how my body hums with energy before every performance, and then I think about myself closing my eyes and dancing, getting lost in the movements. I miss getting lost. I miss it a lot. I miss that moment when I'm moving across stage, feeling nothing but the gentle pounding in my temples and the beautiful, magical, exhilarating feeling that all of my different dance moves give me.

Finally,
I think about my parents. I think about how they never deserved to die, like I don't. I think about what it must have been like--to die like that. To one moment be sitting in the living room, drinking wine and listening to music, and the next, to just not exist anymore. I think about how they went down with such a fight--they always go down with fights, that's just who they are--and how Dad and Mom attacked the robber when he stole her prized jewelry, and then I think about him holding the gun on them, taking a breath, and firing. And before everything else, I think about how my parents' hands locked as they fell backwards, think about how, even in death, they were together forever.

And then, before I fall and break my leg and end my dance career forever, I think about nothing at all.

I drift back into consciousness after some time, feeling my head and heart pounding. My ears are still ringing, not even slowing their incessant sound for a second. I try to look around, but my vision is blurry. I'm moving, though, and something hard is beneath me, like someone is carrying me away in their arms. Which makes no sense. But I definitely feel myself progressing forward, feel the nausea rise up, and the next thing I know, something warm and soft is beneath me. And then, when I try to open my eyes, there is blackness. Another memory.

It's been o
ver a year and a half since the night I almost died, and I still haven't moved on. I moved
away
, if that counts, to this dead-end town. I got a job, a tiny apartment, and I guess my prediction about living only to get through the next day came true after all. I'm not happy, not really. I have no love, no passion left in me. I'm living just to survive, doing nothing more, nothing less. This Starbucks job has gotten me less than nowhere, and so when my new friend Ash convinced me to try just one night out at a club, I said yes. "It's not like you have anything else to do," she'd said, which was all too true. I didn't have any hobbies. I didn't have any interests. Hell, I'd probably have just spent my night watching TV if it weren't for.

But instead, that night, I met
Sebastian.

And then everything changed.

Anyway, Ash brought me to a club as soon as I agreed to go out with her. I dressed up in a purple dress, put on eyeliner and mascara and some makeup and lipstick, and then I let her drive me to wherever she had in mind.

So here I am, standing here, so, so out of place.
The club is as cliché as ever. It's a giant room made up of multiple floors connected by a white, winding staircase. The whole place is dark, flooded with people drinking and swaying to the music, laughing and talking as the colored flashing lights illuminates the area between beats. Retro music pulses throughout the building, and everything is so loud and full and surreal that I feel like I'm in a dream.

"C'mon," Ash says, taking my arm and pulling me to the bar, where several
desperate, well-dressed men sip drinks and flirt with any passing women.

Ash sits me down on the stool, then orders us both a drink. It's pathetic, really. That I'm here. That going to random clubs at midnight on a Thursday night is what my life has come to. But it has, and at least the club provides a distraction from everything else. At least, for a few hours, I can pretend to be normal.

"So how are you liking it so far?" Ash shouts to me over the music, taking her drink in her hand and smiling like she always does: like nothing in the world but this moment matters. I've always admired that about her, how she lives 100% in the present, how she never lets anything but what's happening right here, right now bother her. It's a nice way to live, and sometimes I wish I could ever be like that.

"It's fine," I manage to say, but as I look around the packed club, I couldn't feel more out of place.

"Don’t worry." Ash leans into me. "We'll find you a hot date."

I nod, not really believing it, when a man comes up to Ash. "Fancy a drink?" he says, smiling at her. He is handso
me and blonde, and Ash and I can both see it.

"Totally." He sits down beside her, and Ash beams at me, totally forgetting her mission to find me a date, and then goes to talk to this fancy stranger.

I sigh to myself. Five minutes in, and I'm already getting abandoned. Great. It's like this club is a metaphor for my life. I take a sip of wine, closing my eyes and waiting for all of this to go away.

"
The wine is good for making you forget," a man's voice says behind me.

I don
’t look at him. I don't have the energy. After all, he's probably just a random creeper I have no interest in. "Yeah," I mutter. "It sure is."

There's a pause. "First time here too?"

"Fortunately," I manage to say, taking another sip.

He laughs then. That stops me dead. He has a nice laugh. A
really
nice laugh. It's thick and masculine, warm and inviting all at once. His voice is kind of nice, too, now that I think about it. It's almost sing-song, in a sexual, growling kind of way.

So I turn around to face him.

And goddammit, was I wrong about calling him a creeper.

He is--let's face it--smoking hot. He wears a newly-tailored suit that runs the length of his body. His dark hair is wavy and slicked back, and his skin is that perfectly sun-kissed kind of tan. His jaw is thick, and his eyes are a deep blue, smoky and icy all at once, like a fire on a frozen lake. He smiles at me when I look at him, broad and toothy, revealing a pair of killer dimples on either side of his mouth.

"May I?" he asks, reaching for my hand.

I hesitate, then nod.

It takes him less than a second to take my hand into his, lean in, and kiss it. Slow. Affectionate. His lips lingering on my skin just a little too long. He lifts his head up slowly, locking eyes with me, and I feel my skin crawl, because his lips feel so good against me.

"What's your name?" he asks after a minute.

I'm so busy thinking about his lips that the question catches me off guard. I look up, startled. "What?"