And now she’s gone, just like I asked.
I want her back. So fucking bad.
14
Kenzi
Kenzi ~ age seventeen
Asher ~ age thirty-two
As soon as I wake up, I can feel something is wrong. There’s a darkness in the air – something foreboding that makes a chill run down my spine as I climb out of bed- even though the house is not cold. I find him sitting on the couch in the living room. The television is off. There’s no music playing. And that’s very unlike him, because sound is his passion. He’s staring at the floor and doesn’t even seem to notice that I’ve walked into the room.
“Dad?” I say tentatively, afraid to jolt him out of the trance he appears to be in.
His head raises unnaturally slow, and he starts to tremble. This is it, I think to myself. Mom is really gone. She’s no longer lingering between life and death, holding us as emotional hostages in her limbo. It’s over.
I run across the hardwood floors and kneel down in front of him. And that’s when I notice the blood. On his hands, and on his shirt. It’s smeared, and not wet, but sticky. It has to be recent.
“Oh my God. Daddy…are you hurt?”
“It’s not mine,” he whispers.
“What happened? Whose blood is this?”
“Katie’s dead.”
I feel like the life just got sucked out of me as my mind tries to process what he just said, hoping I must have heard him wrong. Katie is my five-year-old cousin. Five-year-olds don’t die. Especially ones that are so happy and healthy, like Katie.
“What? No…” I shake my head as tears start to track down my face.
“Lukas and I had to identify the body. Vandal had a car accident, and she was in the back seat. It’s his blood.”
“Uncle Vandal? Is he-?”
He shakes his head. “He’s okay. Hurt…but okay.”
Gulping, I tug at his blood-stained shirt. I can’t be near it, and he shouldn’t be either. “Let’s take this off, Dad,” I say softly, and he lets me pull his shirt over his head. I take the soft throw blanket off the top of the couch and gently wrap it around him. He’s still shaking uncontrollably and I’m afraid he’s in shock.
“I can’t get it out of my head. She was so little…it was awful. I feel sick.” He chokes on his tears and presses his palms against his eyes. “I can’t stop seeing her little broken body.”
I put my arms around him and hug him close to me, fighting the waves of devastation that are rippling through my own body.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
I don’t know what else to say, or how to comfort him. He needs his wife, not me. I have never experienced death before this, and I’m torn between falling apart myself and needing to be strong for my father. All I can offer is words I’ve read in books or heard in movies. “Let’s try to remember her before. How cute she was. Don’t think about tonight. That’s not her anymore.”
Maybe I should call my Grandmother, or Storm, my other uncle, who’s very close to my dad. They must be going through the exact same feelings of grief and disbelief right now, though, and probably won’t be able to console him any more than I can.
My father clings to me, hugging me so tight I can barely breathe. “I’d die if something happened to you. I can’t ever lose you, too.”
I stroke the back of his head. “Nothing is ever going to happen to me, Dad. I promise.”
Kenzi
It wasn’t easy convincing my father I could make the two-and-a-half hour drive to Maine safely by myself without crashing, getting lost, getting kidnapped, picking up a hitchhiker, or getting several speeding tickets, but after much debate, I finally convinced him to let me go. He didn’t understand my sudden decision to leave as soon as possible and stood in my room with a worried look on his face watching me pack a suitcase like a demented squirrel with way too many nuts.
“I don’t understand why you’re leaving in such a rush. Did something happen? Did Katherine say something?” he asks. There’s been a slight rift between my father and my aunt Katherine since my mom’s accident. She wanted me to come live with her permanently, stating that I needed to be raised by a mature woman now and not by a bunch of rock stars. My father won that battle, agreeing to let me spend the summers with Katherine. But honestly, I don’t think my aunt has ever really trusted that her only sister’s child was being raised right. I’ve never met my mother’s parents since they basically disowned her when she got pregnant with me, so Katherine is the only relative of my mother’s that I have any contact with. Every time I visit, she begs me to stay permanently. I always leave, though, because I miss my dad, my family, and Chloe. And Tor.