Page 2 of Endurance

Seeing the blood stains on the carpet made my steps slow. I took them in quickly with a clenched jaw before stepping over them and continuing on. The bedroom door was open. My feet planted themselves in the floor after one step inside. My eyes widened at the sight before me. Half of the room was destroyed. The couch was flipped, the coffee table was broken, the armchair was chucked across the room. Drawers from the dresser were ripped out and tossed and clothes were thrown about.

I spotted Jameson sitting on the floor in the corner. I made my way over to him. Glass crunched under my shoes and I had to hop over a knocked over end table and couch cushion to get to him. He had one leg stretched out and one bent with an arm draped over his knee. His knuckles were bleeding. His breathing was heavy, and his eyes were closed. In his lap, he clutched a pink cloth.

I bumped his shoe with mine. His eyes shot open. What I saw in them had me taking a seat on the ground next to him.

“I see you remodeled,” I tried to joke. His gaze glided over the room, but I didn’t think he actually saw it. His eyes looked as vacant and sad as Maura’s had since she'd found out we’d lost the baby. That thought had me clenching my jaw again. “I told you not to come here.”

He rested his head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. “I had to see.”

How did I fix this? How did I make the pain stop? Theirs and mine. I felt like I was free falling down an endless pit of helplessness. I raked my fingers through my hair, scratching my scalp as I went. Fuck, I was tired.

“It was a girl,” Jameson mumbled.

“What?”

He held out the pink cloth. Giving it a second look, I realized the cloth was something a baby would wear. I took it and held it out in front of me. The onesie wasn’t much bigger than my hand and what was written on the front squeezed all the air from my lungs.

The state of the bedroom suddenly made sense and now, I wished I could add to the destruction.

We ran into Emmanuel, one of Salome Herrera’s lovers in the hospital lobby. Salome was the family’s cocaine supplier from Colombia. Or if we were being transparent, Maura’s cocaine supplier. Because of Samuel’s dumbassery and how he'd disrespected Salome, she'd informed Stefan that she now sold to Maura. She hadn't said ‘and not the family’ but it had been heard loud and clear.

Emmanuel shook Jameson’s hand, then mine before putting a hand on each of our shoulders. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said gently in his thick accent.

I nodded tightly.

“How’d you hear?” Jameson grumbled.

Emmanuel didn’t seem to take Jameson's rudeness personally and for that, I was grateful. Jameson was so wrung tight, it felt as though he was going to snap at any moment.

Emmanuel dropped his hands from our shoulders and straightened. “We received a call that Maura was dead. I’ve already informed Stefan of this but Salome sent me here to verify that it was true. I’m relieved, as I know Salome will be, that it is not.”

Dumbfounded, I asked, “Who told you she was dead?”

“Sean,” Jameson answered before Emmanuel could.

Emmanuel nodded. “He called Salome yesterday to inform her of Maura’s passing and that he would be her point of contact moving forward. Salome is very upset.”

Jameson cursed under his breath and stormed off.

I thanked Emmanuel before chasing after my best friend. I caught up to him at Maura’s hospital room. He was standing just outside, staring in through the partially opened door. I came up next to him to see what he was looking at. It was Stefan. He was sitting close to Maura, with his elbows resting on the mattress of her bed. He held her hand up to his cheek and was speaking to her softly.

“I know it hurts,” he said. She appeared to be sleeping. The wet tracks of tears spilling into her hair said otherwise. He ran his hand over the top of her head, stroking her hair. “The pain will pass, I promise. You just have to endure it until it does.”

With each passing day of Maura not eating, barely sleeping, and in a constant void-like state, the more anxious and angry Jameson got. He looked as helpless as I felt. We had tried everything to snap Maura out of it. I'd even begged. When Jameson had started pleading with her, I'd had to leave the room for some fresh air. Hearing the pain in my best friend’s voice had been too much to handle.

I took a seat in the waiting room, breathing through the ache in my chest. My eyes burned. I refused to cry. I had to stay strong for them. Jameson more so. He was starting to spiral whereas Maura was already gone.

Fuck!

I hated that I’d just thought that. She wasn’t lost. She would be alright. She just needed time. I raked my fingers through my hair, feeling pathetic at my weak attempt to convince myself that everything would turn out okay. I knew one thing for sure, though. We needed to keep her safe. We had enemies circling around us like vultures looking for the best opportunity to strike. We couldn’t let this happen again.

The day Maura was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital, Jameson brought up the Aryans to Stefan. It wasn’t the first time this past week and like all the other times, Stefan shut him down, saying, “We’ll take care of them later.” It pissed us both off, but this time Jameson wasn’t backing down.

He frowned at Stefan, who was sitting on the other side of Maura’s hospital bed. “We can’t let this go.”

“We won’t,” Stefan assured. “But let’s not worry about that right now. Maura takes priority.”

I was tired of the brush off just as much as Jameson, which was why I had to strain to stay calm when I said, “It’s a priority that she’s safe and she’s not safe here in New Haven. Someone in the family is feeding the Aryans information. We all assumed it when her and Rourke were attacked the first time, but now it’s obvious. There’s no other way that Aryan would have been able to get into her room without being seen on a single camera.”