His head.
It was…
Where was his face?
The mass of blood and flesh sent me back tothatday. A day I’d tried to forget. A day I’d tried to delete from my brain, but I wasn’t a computer, and no matter how hard I tried, there was no deleting files from there.
My great-grandparents had died like this. But it washerI could see like it was yesterday. The blood draining from her chest, sputtering from her mouth as she lay on the ground, staring up at nothing.
George didn’t even have any eyes to stare with.
He was a mass of pulpy flesh that made me want to puke.
My eyes prickled with tears, though, because I knew that if George was dead, Liam was nowhere to be seen which made me think he’d been hit too, and Jerry was back in the car, I was alone.
I was the only one who could keep Mom safe.
There was blood everywhere, and in the heat of the day, somehow, the metallic scent was all the more powerful.
I knew I’d never forget it. How could I?
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen something like this, and that was before Declan had come into our lives.
I’d told him that my great-grandparents had died in a home invasion that had gone wrong—I’d lied.
Well, not about the home invasion. But I’d only knownhowthey died because I’d seen it. Great-Grandma had shoved me in a closet a few seconds before the doors had burst open and masked gunmen had stormed in.
I’d watched them shove guns under their chins and blow their brains out.
That had happened when I was five.
I still remembered it.
Like it was yesterday.
I’d asked Declan to look into it, to see if it was murder, and Conor had told me it was just a run of the mill home invasion that had gone wrong… I knew it wasn’t.
Sure, on paper it was, but I’d been there.
I’d seen it. I knew otherwise.
Then there was the time when Mom had a job in West Orange.
People died around me.
Gruesome deaths.
Nasty deaths.
It was why I kept checking on Mom. She couldn’t leave me. She just couldn’t.
I heard some footsteps on the boardwalk above me, and though the prospect of touching George was horrendous, I knew I had no choice. His gun was in his hand, and I could see from the bulk in his jacket that he probably had another weapon holstered there.
As I moved over to his side, my knees burning as they scraped on a stone in the grass as I grazed it, I managed to take the gun from the holster as well as the one in his hands.
Soon, I knew his body would grow stiff with death. Rigor mortis, they called it. I’d read about it on Wikipedia, but reading about it had only made the memories worse.
Mom didn’t know the extent of what I’d seen. If she had, she’d have made me see that kid shrink even more. That was when I’d known I had to lie to her.