Page 5 of The Hidden Guardian
“Hey, thanks for before.” I lean on the locker beside hers. “They were getting way too personal.”
“No problem, those guys have a hard-on for you.”
“Ew, gross.” I snicker, my face scrunching up in disgust.
“Just saying …” She throws her arms up. “Looks like you owe me two now. How about you come camping and we call it even?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s the best I can hope for.” We walk out together before she heads off toward her truck and my feet freeze like I’m in quicksand. My eyes lock on the blacked-out SUV still sitting in the parking lot. My eyes scan the area … they are parked right in the front, facing the entrance. The perfect spot to see who is coming and going. I get a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that they are waiting forme. It was something about the look in their eyes that made me feel like I’d be seeing them again. But they weren’t counting on me leaving through the employee entrance, and I see my chance. It’s one of the few times I’m grateful I don’t have a car to drive. I slowly sneak backward into the shadow of the building toward the rear of the warehouse. Once I’m out of sight, I run toward the safety of the tree line. Inside the shadows of the trees, I press on toward home. Maintaining my path just out of sight of the main road to make sure I don’t get lost.
Usually, the sounds of the forest soothe me, but for some reason this feeling of anxiety won’t stop humming in my veins. It’s the strangest sensation I’ve ever felt and almost feels like the time I woke up a year ago in the middle of the night screaming for my brother. Only he wasn’t the one beside my bed. It was a strange shadow of the plant I had nursed back to health. It was glowing in an eerie green light almost as if it was trying to tell me something. I couldn’t tell you what that was—I’m not crazy. I can’t speak to plants. But I could almost swear the way it was leaning in toward me, it was warning me to wake. That was the night Colton broke his arm. He was drinking with his friends in the woods and apparently, he was dared to climb a tree. Of course, he’d fallen. He was lucky his arm was the only thing that he hurt. I’ll never forget the fear I had that night—or the fact that it took me months to pay off his hospital visit.
I felt this same humming in my veins that night as well. At first, I was alarmed, but that same unsettling feeling comes now and again when my brother stays out late, and I’ve chalked it up to what people call a maternal instinct. It causes me to have these strange epiphanies when my brother is in danger. I don’t have a name for it, but I have this insane feeling of responsibility over Colton. My stomach twists in anticipation before it drops and my heart stops for a moment and then speeds up incessantly.
Pop.
A far-away sound echoes in the woods around me. Birds flutter into the wind at the sound of it. I’m about a block from my cabin, and that feeling assaults me again. My stomach drops to the floor. Something happened. Something withColton…
My feet stop, the whole world tilts on its axis, and I’m falling to my knees in the dirt vomiting. Dread pools in my gut, but I force myself to rise to my feet. Desperation fills my bones and I burst into a run through the trees toward town. The breath in my lungs burns, I barely make it a few steps before doubling over and gagging uncontrollably, more vomit threatening to assault me. Tears drip from my eyes. I’m gasping for a breath of fresh air, but it does nothing for the burning in my lungs. I can always sense my brother, Colton calls it my sixth sense, but as I run closer and closer, the more it seems to fade. Slipping from my grasp like grains of sand through my fingers. My legs burn as I come to the end of the tree line and wander out to the edge of town.
Sirens echo in the distance when my mind finally clicks back to the here and now. I’m running, I don’t remember deciding to start running or even where I’m going, but my feet are flying underneath me. I hurtle over someone’s fence when I reach town. That’s when a little tug in my heart tells me to turn toward Matteus’s house. My arms are pumping fast, hair whipping across my face, my khaki work pants are splattered with mud—maybe even vomit—yet I continue my path through people’s backyards. That’s the least of my worries because the tug in my chest suddenly stopped. Itstopped. I can’t feel it anymore. I can’t feel …him.
Now I’m randomly stumbling over my own feet as I slow down. Red and white lights dance across a white house before me. Matteus’s house.
Three police cars are blocking my view from the front, and sitting there is an ambulance with its back doors ajar. The flutter comes again, telling me subconsciously that I need to get around back of the house. Veering to the line of trees along the white fence, I dash into the shadows and follow the fence around to the backyard. The police are questioning someone, his identity is blocked from my line of sight. A body lies on the grass, beside a stretcher that blocks my view. My stomach churns with the unknown, but I can’t look away.
Voices echo to me. “Coroner’s cleared him, lift on three,” a paramedic tells his coworker. I rise to my tip toes, peeking through the holes in the fence.
“One.” My breathing ceases.
“Two.” My heart stops.
“Three.” My remaining lunch, along with hysteria, comes barreling out of my throat into the bushes beside me as I realize what I’m witnessing.
* * *
The metal chair is ice against my back, the rest of me is numb. My fingers grow white as they are clenched against the seat. The time from the moment my eyes saw Colton lying on that stretcher to now is a blur. I remember running over. I recall deliriously screaming to see him, an unknown arm around my waist, and the words, “I’m sorry, he’s gone.”
The fluorescent lights flicker above me as my mind realizes I’ve been lost in thought, somewhere far, far away.
“Ms. Hemming? Are you okay?” the young officer’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry we have to do this right now.” He shifts in his chair awkwardly. “The more information we have, the faster we can locate the person responsible.”
Thekiller.
I shiver. There could be no other explanation, Colton was shot. Half of his face was missing. I was the only one who could identify the odd M birthmark on his shoulder. They asked how I’d gotten there so fast. They didn’t believe me when I said I could feel a tether between us breaking. I had no way to describe the feeling of part of my heart being ripped away from me except using those very words, knowing that it made me sound a bit odd. Nothing could ever describe the blinding silence in its wake, though.
“I … I just need a minute.” Or a lifetime. The blinding light dazes me, and the bile threatens to rise in the back of my throat.
“Can I get you some coffee, Ms. Hemming?”
“Yeah, I …” I tremble as I rise to my feet. “I, ummm, need to use the ladies’ room.”
“Of course.” He rises to his feet and opens the door. “It’s right across the hall. I’ll get you–”
The rest of his sentence is cut off by the bathroom door shutting behind me. The mirror behind the sink is blurry, smeared with something, and the harsh lighting of the bathroom throws everything in a yellow hue. The tears stream down my face untamed.
This can’t be happening. Colton’s my life, what do I do now?
