-1"Keep that music down!" My father's booming voice was the last thing I wanted to hear coming from the other side of my door.
"Dad, you're ruining my mellow flow!" I shouted as I switched from Lotus position to the mountain pose.
"Yeah, well you're ruining my sleep flow. Keep it down!"
"Fine!" I turned around to the radio beside me and pushed the volume down. I waited until I heard my father's footsteps walk back to his room before I went to a raised arm pose.
A few hours later, Enya was singing about Avalon or something when I decided it was time to put up for the night. I turned off the radio, and went to put my pajamas on. When I got back from the bathroom, I could hear voices. My dad and I were the only people in the house, so I checked my radio again, but it was completely off. Right then and there my training kicked in. Being the daughter of a marine, I had been taught a few things about protecting myself. I grabbed the browning I kept in my bedside table, and started down the hallway to my father's room. I got to the door, and found my dad standing beside his bed. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, when I spotted another person in the room.
He was tall, about the same height as my father, but anything more I couldn't tell. The light in the room wasn't on. He was wearing all black. First thought through my mind: intruder. I clicked the safety off the gun and pointed it at the man I didn't know. He said something to my father. It sounded Spanish, but he spoke so fast, I couldn't translate. Whatever he said, my father's eyes grew wide. Wide with fear. The man raised his own gun and fired. I fired. I got the man in his arm, and he whirled around to see me standing by the door. He hissed at me, actually hissed, and jumped out the window. It was a one story house, I saw the man run. I wanted to chase him down, but my father needed attention first.
"Maebh!" He wheezed, so I knew he took a hit in the chest. I tore a piece of my oversized pajama shirt off, and applied pressure to the wound. I needed to stop the bleeding.
"Come on, dad! You survived Desert Storm, you can survive this!" I tried to blink back the tears as they welled in my eyes.
"Look after your brother!" He smiled, and looked at the ceiling.
"Oh no you don't! Look at me! Stay with me, dad! You can beat this, and look after Damion yourself!" The sound of police sirens. A neighbor must have heard the gunshots and called them. "Dad, come one! Please! Don't leave me, too! I need you!"
"Mae? Are you ok?" Sherriff Marx's voice sifted through the house, but I couldn't hear him.
"Dad! Dad! Dad!" I screamed it over and over again. I couldn't stop. He wouldn't react. He wouldn't move. Why wouldn't he move? Why wouldn't he wake up, and tell me this was all a bad dream? Why wouldn't he answer me?
Three hours later I was sitting in the police department, staring into an ebony black cup of hours old coffee. I tried not to move, every time I did, flakes of my father's blood fell on the table. I was sick of looking at them. I was covered in his blood. My face was blood red from crying. My fingers was blood red from griping my own arms, making pain to assure myself that I was awake. Blood. Blood. Blood.
The door to the office I was sitting in opened, but I didn't look up. I didn't want to see another person look at me with pity or sympathy in their eyes. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to go home and sit on my bed, and cry myself to sleep. It was four in the morning. I just wanted it all to end, if only for a few hours.
"Hi. I'm Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. That's Naval-"
"I know what it means." I cut the man off. "If you want my statement, or whatever, the cops already have it."
"No, I just thought that you might like some company." he set a new cup of coffee in front of me, and I looked up at him.
"How long have you been an NCIS agent, Agent Gibbs?"
"Too long."
"Uh-huh. And in all that time, have you ever known a person who just lost someone to want company?" I raised an eyebrow.
"I can't say that I have." He smiled at me. I knew that I was being… difficult, to say the least, but I didn't feel like humoring this guy. I just wanted to go home, or at least what was left of it.
"Mrs. Grady, please comply with Agent Gibbs." A cop was sitting in the corner of the office. I had forgotten about him.
"That's ok. Perhaps this is a visit better suited for another time. Best for you to get some sleep, eh?" Gibbs smiled at me, and I silently thanked him.
"Fine. Mae, you can go home. We'll call you this afternoon." The cop said.
"Thank you." I whispered to Gibbs, and I walked out of the office, back to the house I once called home.