Chapter 40

How long I was laying there awake doesn't matter. It didn't matter to me then, and it doesn't matter to me now. But I know that sometime after the sun had come up, when the tears had run out and my eyes were burning, I still sat there, curled up, like an expressionless zombie, not crying, not doing anything. I wanted them there. I wanted to wake up and have it all be some nightmare. I knew it couldn't be real.

Someone had come in. I didn't look, I didn't care who they were. They came in and said something about the police finding our pet duck there, and she put Jake down on my bed.

When I looked over and saw Jake there, shaking as I'd been shaking the night before, I burst into tears again. I think you can never truly run out of tears. I was so happy that he was alive, and so miserable that Claudette and Amber weren't, and so torn with the memories of our first year together, and how we'd come to have Jake.  I reached over and picked him up, holding him against me, crying on him. I didn't care what he thought about it, just wanted to hold onto him because he was all I had left.

Perhaps a half hour later someone knocked at the door. I wanted to stop crying and try to compose myself for whoever it was, but found that I couldn't, and kept sobbing as they opened the door and walked in.

"Kane…"

I knew the voice. My head snapped up and I saw Mark standing there. He looked years older, creases in his forehead and bags under his eyes. Red rimmed his eyes, as if he'd been crying, and still was a bit, just not as much as I was. He walked over to my bed and sat down, embracing me. I collapsed against him. Jake sat next to me as I clung to my brother, sobbing on him, my head in his lap as he rubbed my arms.

"Why???" I kept saying over and over. "Why does this shit always happen to me? I never asked for this…"

"I know, Kane, I know…" he would say each time, and push back my hair and rub my back. He was crying too. I knew that he was upset as well, that he and Amber were close, that he must've felt something for his niece, but I was too busy thinking about how miserable I was at the time to give him any comfort. After a couple of hours I calmed down, his clothes covered with my tears, my clothes covered in blood which was not my own. I cleared my head a bit, trying to think.

"Did umm…" every time I stopped crying the tears would come back as soon as I'd try to speak. "Does Raven and Saph know? And Vince?? And…and Mike…" I started to sob again. Mark's face contorted horribly. He hugged me again.

"No they don't know yet. I figured I'd tell them later on…but I came to see you first and I'm still here…"

"How'd you know?" I asked him. I didn't look at him, my head against his chest.

"They called me…we have the same last name, you know…"

I tried to breathe, my whole frame shaking. "Yeah…" my hands were trembling. "I…I don't think I can tell them…you have to do it for me…please…" he put his arms around my shoulders and pulled me against him as I cried.

"Shhh…yeah I'll do it for you," he said quietly. I noticed that the whole time he never told me that anything was going to be alright, and never told me to calm down. It stung me even more because now was almost the exact situation as the morning after the fire, when he'd come to me and held me in his arms, and never said those words, later on explaining that he knew for a fact that he couldn't bring back our mother and it wasn't going to be alright, and that why should I calm down after what just happened?

It was true. I didn't want to be calm. I didn't want to breathe and be strong. I'd just lost my fucking wife and my daughter. The last thing in my mind was trying to be calm. He slowly pulled away from me and stood, leaving the room. I felt unbearably cold. He was my only family left and I wanted him to be with me. I could hear him on his cell phone in the corridor outside the room.

"Vince? It's Mark…" he gave a short laugh, from what I don't know because I couldn't hear what Vince was saying. "I have some uhh…bad news…" I wished I could hear what he was saying. "I umm, really don't know how to say this…well last night, Amber and Claudette…" I heard his voice catch in his throat. "They were…murdered last night, Vince…"

For whatever reason, the shock, the loss, that word had never crossed my mind. And as soon as Mark had spoken that word "murdered" it had made perfect sense to me. It was so obvious that they'd been murdered. After a few minutes he came into the room, looking at me with a desperation that made me want to cry more.

"I uh…I don't know how I'm going to tell Saph and Rave…" he sat down on the foot of the bed, placing his hand on my knee. Jake curled up against me.

My heart throbbed. "Tell them to come here. I'll tell them…but in person…"

He nodded and went back into the hallway. I didn't care to listen to what he was saying now. My head throbbed from the crying. My stomach hurt from hunger. I wanted to just die. Mark gave me a sad nod as he came back into the room.

"Do you need anything?" he asked me, completely sincere. I felt repulsed as I looked down at my clothes, covered in blood.

"Could you…go back to my house and get me clothes…?" I asked. I felt horrible sending him there but…I needed it. I needed that from him. I just needed him to be there for me. And he didn't argue with me. Before he walked out of the room I asked him one more think. "And umm…could you get…my mask?" He looked down at the floor as he nodded,

I was lying in the dark, not crying, just breathing, for a long time. After a while, after I'd really calmed down. Misery swept me, and I was somewhere else in my head. I was laying in the ocean, and floating, and alone. And I was walking across a desert, my destination never getting any closer. I was suspended in the sky, lost in clouds which were frightening and intimidating. I was faced with all this great open things and alone, by myself.

The hunger was killing me. Only then I tried to calm myself down enough to stand, to take Jake in my arms and leave the room, feeling completely dizzy as I walked aimlessly through the hospital looking for somewhere that I could get food. I kept my hair in my face, ashamed of my appearance, feeling hideous and ugly. I staggered to the elevator and soon found myself in a cafeteria on the first floor. I got a cup of coffee and a sandwich, everything feeling alien in my mouth and as I swallowed, as more tears came to me again.

Sandwiches…

I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to think about that day that she and I had gone up to the chapel and then come back and wanted sandwiches. She loved sandwiches. And I did too. And Claudette probably would've, too…I slammed my fist down against the table in anger, dropping the sandwich down and leaning my elbows on the table, holding my head in my hands.

"Bastard…" I mumbled. "Bastard, you goddamned BASTARD!!!" I stood and flipped the table over, storming out of the room with Jake following me. He was so loyal to me, not leaving me though I'd lashed out in anger. I walked down the hallway, not knowing where I was, stopping and pulling at my hair, punching the wall and yelling again in anger. I sat down on a couch in the hallway. Jake flapped up and sat down in my lap. His eyes stared into mine. I actually felt a little better and rubbed his neck.

"I'm sorry if I scared you, Jake…" I sighed and stroked his feathers. "You saw him, didn't you, Jake? You saw that fuckin prick…" I didn't know if he knew what I was saying to him, but I didn't care. I needed someone to vent to. And Jake was making me feel better, being there with me. He sat and cuddled against me. "I love you, Jake…and I'm going to find the guy who did this. And I'm going to kill him."