The New Start pt4
Carina awoke on a bed, a soft warm inviting bed covered in an emerald green blanket. She was back in her old room, the last place she had lived with her mother, after years it really felt like her home. Everything made her want to stay curled up in the bed but she knew from past experience it didn't work that way. As predicted her body moved without permission, pulling herself up and out of bed before turning towards the clock. 01:24, as always she had woken up just in time to observe the incident. She headed out of her old room and into the hallway; she saw a strip of light coming from the kitchen where her mother was watching TV. She heard a squeaking noise, it was much louder than it had been on the night as if taunting her and reminding her she missed the obvious signs. She opened the door and saw her mother sat quietly at the table nursing a cup of coffee and watching some new program. Despite knowing it would be useless Carina called out, trying to get her mother's attention but it was as if she wasn't even there, in the corner of her eye Carina saw a shadow moving behind her. This was the moment that plagued her, no matter how hard or desperately she tried to stop Carina's body turned round away from her mother and at the source of the shadow she never managed to stop herself. As she turned a masked intruder slipped silently through a window, spinning back around she was just in time to see him hold a silver Browning 9 mm Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol pressed against her mother's skull. One small part of Carina was relieved that is was nearly over. In a moment before the trigger was pulled Carina caught the look in Nell's eyes, a sorrowful look as if apologizing for leaving her all alone. The man tensed and his left eye twitched then he ended Nell Jones.
As Carina snapped awake and gasped loudly Callen jumped upright searching for the source of the noise. "Are you okay?" he asked Carina seeing the tense state her body was in. "Yeah I'm fine it was just." She paused "nothing everything's swell". Both of them knew things were far from swell but they dropped the subject and returned to the task of trying to get back to sleep.
The next three times it happened that night Carina didn't even bother t wake up but Callen got up every time, unsure what to do as his daughter twitched and muttered things trapped in her own personal terror.