Vigilantes - Volume 1 Chapter 22 The Only Person Who Mattered

I was vaguely aware that someone was holding my hand but I still couldn’t open my eyes. I m.o.a.ned, trying to reach whoever was touching me, but I couldn’t do it.

“Take it easy,” the familiar voice soothed. “You’re going to be okay.”

Could anything ever be okay? Mom was gone. Cindy was gone. So who was comforting me? I still didn’t remember what happened.

“Who are you?” another familiar voice demanded rudely.

The pressure on my hand ceased and I wanted to tell them to come back. I couldn’t bear being alone and not knowing what was going on, but I still couldn’t speak.

“Nick Ekins. I’m Lori’s stepbrother,” the first voice said.

Stepbrother? I didn’t have a stepbrother. Dad didn’t remarry after Mom died.

The first voice still sounded suspicious. “I’ve never heard of you.”

A smacking sound. Nick spoke up, “You must be Jonathan. I knew Lori was dating someone but we’ve never met.”

“If you’re really her stepbrother, tell me why I’ve never even heard your name,” Jonathan insisted. “Why wouldn’t she have mentioned you?”

“We were never that close,” Nick said nonchalantly. “Her dad married my mom when I was already in college. Cindy and Lori were still in high school. We only got back in touch a few months ago when we realized we didn’t live too far from each other.”

Jonathan pondered this a moment. “That still doesn’t explain why she never mentioned you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, she’s a very private person. Losing Cindy hit her hard. She hardly keeps in contact with our parents, which is why we fell out of touch,” Nick explained.

I wasn’t sure why this man was covering for me. I couldn’t remember much but I did know his voice.

Jonathan’s voice was gentler now. “How old was Cindy when she died?”

“Seventeen,” Nick said sadly. “Six months shy of graduation.”

“What happened?”

“A car accident,” Nick lied. “Drunk driver. Same way her mom went years earlier. I’m worried about how Lori will react when she wakes up. I don’t want her to be afraid of cars again.”

“Inever knew,” Jonathan sighed. “I wish she would have told me these things herself. She never talks about her family.”

“Now you know why,” Nick replied. “I’m just glad she let me back into her life. She needed someone.”

Jonathan seemed troubled by this. “She has me.”

“When we met up again you were just a coworker,” Nick reminded him. “So don’t feel bad.”

“I wish I’d known,” Jonathan murmured again. A hand gently brushed the hair off my forehead. “I wish she’d tell me things. I want to be there for her.”

A single thought emerged from the haze in my brain: I wasn’t there for Cindy when it mattered most.

===

It had been a long, miserable day taking both the SAT and the ACT. The school counselor told me it was more impressive to colleges if you took both so I figured why not? One more giant test wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Not wanting to be apart from Cindy too much, I figured one super long day of tests was better than two slightly shorter ones. There was even a few hours break between them.

She said it’d be fine, she’d just hit the gym while I tested all day. She was already a semi-finalist for a regional junior parkour competition but was pushing herself even more than usual.

I tried to tell her not to burn herself out but she insisted she would do whatever it took to be a finalist. My protests fell on deaf ears.

“I’m doing this for us! Don’t worry about me. Just be your nerdy little self and ace those tests, college girl,” she said with a wink and shoved me toward the group of students already lining up by the doors of the school.

When I finally stumbled out of the building, my brain was mush but I felt like I’d done relatively well. Cindy would roll her eyes at me and call me a smarty-pants before telling me how proud she was with her signature confident grin. I couldn’t wait to get my results back. We were on our way.

I decided to meet her at the gym rather than walk home to face Dad alone. He was easier to face with her by my side. I was a few blocks from the gym when I heard a horrible scream.

“Help! HELP! There’s a girl, in the alley, sheshe” the middle-aged woman couldn’t get anything else out. She looked at me like she’d seen a ghost.

Dread filled my stomach though I didn’t know why. I wandered over to the edge of the alley, hesitant, when the woman found her voice. “No, sweetheart, don’t go over therecall 911, someone else will take care of it”

I didn’t listen. Something compelled me to move my body forward. I looked down at my sister’s bloody, lifeless face. My face. Cindy.

Her limbs were bent at grotesque angles. Her long blonde hair fanned out above her head. The giant sweatpants she always wore to the gym had been torn off beneath her. A knife stuck out of her chest.

A primal howl of anguish tore through me. I might have screamed for hours, dr.a.p.ed across her body. Eventually someone gently lifted me off my sister’s corpse and attempted to wrap me in a blanket. I fought like my life depended on it.

“NO! That’s my sister, let me go, let me go! I have toI can’tI can’t leave her! Don’t make me leave her!”

“Honey, she’s gone,” the person who held me said softly.

“NOOOO!” I rasped, thrashing about. “No, she’s not, she can’t be, let me help! It’s my fault, all my fault, I can’t leave her, don’t make me leave her, please”

Something cold trickled through my arm and I slowly stopped struggling but my sobs echoed in the night long after the ambulance took me away from the only person who mattered.