Page 40 of Body Language (Mind, Body, & Soul #2)

Kendrix

The police were taking her out.

I couldn’t hear anything. Not the radios, not the sirens outside, not even the gasps and murmurs still floating through the air from the people who’d stayed behind to watch the train wreck unfold.

All I could hear was my own heartbeat in my ears.

I followed behind the cops, every step feeling like my body wasn’t mine. My eyes stayed locked on her. Niv. My Niv.

She wasn’t fighting. Wasn’t yelling anymore. Just crying. The kind of tears that break you from the inside out. And she was looking at me. Like she wanted me to see her. Like she wanted to say she was sorry without having to form the words.

And I got it.

But God, Niv… why?

Why couldn’t you have just told me?

We could’ve found another way.

I would’ve found another way.

Now I was walking behind two people I couldn’t imagine my life without. The woman I love and the man who brought me into this world, and knowing there was no way my family would ever come back from this.

Hell, I don’t even know if we could.

My family would hate me for loving her. And I wasn’t even sure if loving her would be enough after this.

We made it outside and the night air hit me with a slap full of reality. The flashing lights painted everything red and blue, and the moment felt like something out of a nightmare.

That’s when I heard it.

“Niv!”

Hux came running from across the lot, Zejah right behind him. The kid’s eyes were wet, his chest heaving like he’d been crying for a while already. But the second he saw her, saw the blood on her hands and shirt, saw her cuffed and flanked by cops, he stopped dead in his tracks.

And Niv, she broke.

Her whole body caved in, her cries turning into full sobs. Because she knew what that sight was doing to him.

All he saw was blood.

All he saw was his sister like that.

I moved fast, cutting across to him before he could get closer.

“What’s going on?!” Hux demanded, his voice cracking.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, grabbing his arm. “Just get out of here—”

“No!” he yelled, jerking against my grip. “I need to talk to my sister!”

He was pulling hard, fighting me, his voice getting louder and more desperate, and the last thing I was about to let happen was him running at the cops and getting himself slammed to the ground.

“Hux, stop—”

“What’s wrong?!” Niv’s voice tore through the chaos. She was crying harder now, twisting to try to see him.

And then it happened.

Hux’s knees buckled and he hit the ground, his palms slapping against the cold pavement. His face crumpled like he’d been holding something in and couldn’t anymore.

Zejah’s scream cut through me like a blade. “We’ve been trying to call you! My sister said your mom overdosed!”

The words punched the air out of my lungs.

Niv froze. And then I watched it hit her. Every ounce of pain, fear, guilt, and love for her mom, all at once. Her cry was the kind of sound you never forget.

It was like the world just… stopped.

The cops still had her arms, still moving her toward the car, but Niv wasn’t walking anymore. She was thrashing, jerking, her voice ripping through the night.

“No! No! No, no, no—”

It wasn’t a word anymore, just a sound. A raw, ugly sound that made every head turn.

Her whole body was fighting the air, fighting fate, fighting the truth she’d just been hit with. She was kicking against nothing, twisting like if she just moved hard enough, she could undo it all.

I grabbed Hux and Zejah and pulled them into me. Hux was shaking, his face buried in my shirt, Zejah’s sobs rattling through her tiny chest. My arms were tight around them, but my eyes—my eyes never left Niv.

I wanted to go to her.

God, I wanted to run and take her out of their hands, wrap her up and tell her it was going to be okay.

But it wasn’t okay.

Not even close.

She’d just put a knife in my father. My father. My flesh and blood. The man I’d looked up to my whole damn life.

And still… still, I looked at her like she was mine.

Because in a matter of minutes, the love of my life had lost everything.

Her freedom.

Her mom.

And those kids she’d risked her whole life to protect.

She caught my eyes through the chaos, through her fight against the cops, and for a split second she wasn’t screaming. She was just looking.

Looking at me like I was the last thing tethering her to earth.

And I knew… nothing I could say, nothing I could do, would ever make that moment go away. For either of us.

Consider this an intermission, not an ending :)