Life can end at any moment, and that's something nobody can avoid. All we can do is part in good terms and left a positive print behind.
The firemen did everything in their power to extinguish the flames, but the fire was already so out of control all they could do was wait until it consumes all its fuel. There were shots fired between police and the criminals, and even when they were opposite ends of the spectrum, the criminal boss and the police officers were able to agree about something: his men were stupid, most of them were caught.
The credit of the police's fast acting goes to the little boy who escaped from the criminals, he ran as much as his little feet allowed him and told the police about the 'bad people with guns' in the building; his mother was one of the many people who were taken hostages, if it wasn't because she couldn't find anyone to look after him who knows what would've happened.
Talking as clear as he could, he explained that those guys had trapped everyone in the building and that his mother was in danger. Judging by how altered the little kid was, the officers knew this was serious. In just a few minutes they had the area secured.
The guy who had just crashed a freaking van against the building in an attempt of killing the two people who screwed his plans was having some troubles to get on his feet; apparently the fall had injured his knee, making it hard and very painful to support his right leg. Cursing his bad luck he got on his good leg and jumped his way towards an alley, where he rested a little before thinking what would he do next. He was wounded, tired, and the police was after his ass. Chances were that he would be arrested and...
The classic sound of a car drifting caught his attention, to his left was the exit of the alley where a police car had just parked, when he saw the officers get out of the vehicle and run towards their partners, he got closer to the car; those idiots left the keys in the ignition.
Nice... the guy thought. Without a second thought he got inside the vehicle, started the engine and used his good leg to escape as fast as he could. Everything could've gone good, but a police officer just saw what happened.
"HE'S ESCAPING"
Several officers aimed their guns at the vehicle, but nobody took the shot; it was going so erratic there was the risk of injuring a civilian. One of them, the youngest who wasn't even twenty five, acted faster and hurried to deploy the spike strip. The speed of the vehicle, along with the bad handling of the guy product of the stress of the situation made him fall for it, losing the control of the vehicle and crashing against a wall. The criminal came out of the vehicle, which ended up totalled.
Cursing out loud, the guy tried to escape once more, this time by foot (the only one he could use). He was so determined to not being jailed he didn't care who he had to punch, who he had to threaten, who he had to fucking kill to get away.
Soon he heard the distinctive sound of bullets ricocheting against the floor, followed by a bullet passing right next to his ear and crashing against a nearby wall. This made him increase his pace, now fearing for his life he desperately looked for a way out. The man entered an alley, praying that those assholes officers didn't see him, there he rested a little bit.
I'm not going to jail again... he thought, catching his breath and wiping the sweat off his forehead. Fucking Lynn, had you only handed what I wanted you could...
A sharp pain stuck on his wounded leg right at his quadriceps, just in the same spot where he had shot Lynn. The man grabbed his leg once more and dropped to the ground in pain, cursing his damn luck once more; the very moment he stops to rest he's busted.
He knew this was the end, he had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and the pain was so much to do anything. But still wanting to fight, still not giving up the man began to crawl his way out of the alley; his efforts of escaping were over when he saw a .45 colt aiming right at the center of his head.
The moment Leni opened the front door after she heard the bell ring she expected to see the delivery guy with their pizzas. Instead she saw an dark skinned police officer, around 1.80 meters with a five o'clock shadow on his face, holding his hat in front of him and an sad expression on his face. The officer wanted to talk to all the siblings, it was hard for him and knew it would definitely be harder for them, but he wanted to give them the news himself since he always saw Lynn Sr. as a good friend.
Once all the Loud children were in the living room, he knew it was time.
"Did something bad happened, Officer Garrick?" Lori asked. She knew something was going on; police doesn't happen to show up randomly at your door and ask to talk with the whole family just because.
"Kids, what I'm about to say it's very hard for me, so I'm gonna ask you to sit down." he began. "There was an incident at the building where your mother works."
The sole mention of 'incident' sent chills down their spines.
"A group of armed men raided the building and took the people working there hostages, apparently they were targetting your father, and wanted to use your mother as a bait to attract him." the officer wanted to be careful with his words, but he knew that he needed to explain the whole situation as it was. "Your father arrived to try and save her, but somehow things went out of control and...the building was set on fire."
He saw the look of astonishment and fear in their eyes, and to be honest he didn't blame them.
"B-But our parents were rescued, right?" Leni asked. "Right?"
The officer took a deep breath before letting the whole weight of the news fall upon them. "I'm really sorry, kids," he began. "They didn't make it. They're gone."
For a whole couple of minutes there was nothing but silence, a dead silence that made this whole situation more uncomfortable and hard for the officer.
The sound of a quiet sob broke the silence, it was Lily, who's face was down as the tears rained down her eyes. Soon another sister followed, it was Leni, then Luna, Lynn, Lana, Lola, and so all the sisters began to cry their eyes out. This was a really hurtful thing to watch for the officer; he had known the Loud family for a while now since he was a regular at Lynn's restaurant, he knew them very well and was considered himself a friend of the family. That's the reason why he wanted to be the one to inform them of the unfortunate event.
Of all the Loud children, the only one who seemed to be somehow strong after hearing the news was Lincoln. The only son of the Louds seemed to be disturbed, like he was holding himself just so he could comfort his sisters. The officer didn't blame him, in fact he considered him a good man; he was proud to see him put the well being of others before his own, specially his sisters.
Officer Garrick waited a few minutes for them to calm down before providing more details of how things went, he talked about the band of criminals, told them about how they caught most of them and their boss trying to escape just to end up with a bullet right on the leg.
The officer finished her job and politely left the house, not before expressing his most sincere condolences to the family once more. Right before he could left they stopped him, they wanted to go there and see it for themselves; officer Garrick wasn't so sure about it, but seeing how desperate they were he had no other choice but escort them to the crime scene.
The girls hoped in Lori's car and followed the officer. The silence inside, occasionally interrupted by a sob, denoted how much this had affected them; they didn't wanted to believe it, they refused to believe it, they couldn't be dead, they fucking couldn't!
Lily had her face buried in Leni's chest while the second of the Loud sisters rubbed her back in an effort to comfort her. Lynn watched through the window, resting her head against the glass trying to find the sense in all of this. Lucy just sat in the middle, looking down without saying a word or making a noise; her pale face was stained with mascara falling right on her black clothes. She didn't care.
Back at the police car was Lincoln, who chose to go with officer Garrick. The whole way he kept watching the road, ignoring the efforts of the officer to make small talk, ignoring the messages coming from the radio, ignoring the looks of the bystanders as they saw a police car with the siren and lights on being followed by a civilian car. There was a lot to digest, and he was far from done with it.
How did it happened? Why did it happened? Maybe that old saying 'sometimes bad things happen to good people' was true, but why it had to be them? That was the only thing he kept repeating in his mind the whole trip. He tried to think in something that he could've changed so this could be avoided, something that could be under his control to prevent all this to happen, but failed. At the end he realized he only was looking for someone to blame and lash out at.
In a matter of minutes they arrived at the scene, he saw the remains of the building where his mother worked, he recalled the time when his sisters went to work with their dad an he had to come with his mother to this very building; he remembers how much he was against it thinking it would be the most boring day, but in the end it resulted to be one of the funniest days in their lives.
Right before he could even open the door, he saw some of his sisters running towards the yellow tape where some officers stopped them right before they could make it through. He got out of the car and saw around, there were lots of officers, a fire truck, an ambulance and a bunch of men cuffed.
Lincoln knew he probably had to sign papers and talk to police and answer questions, so maybe it was for the best if he ended up quick with this and...
"You're gonna be behind bars for a long time." he heard someone say not so far from him. As he turned around he spotted a guy sitting on an ambulance, he had some kind of protection on his leg and was handcuffed. Lincoln approached carefully.
"I don't care..." the guy responded. "At least that asshole is dead now"
This did nothing but infuriate the officers in charge of him. "You destroyed the life of a family, they were parents of eleven children, they were good people," one of them was saying, clearly holding himself from slaughtering this piece of shit.
"It was all his fault," the man spat. "If he had given me what I was asking he and his bitch of a wife would be alive right now!"
"Excuse me," Lincoln approached, leaving both the officers and the criminal confused. "What did you say?"
"Please leave, sir, let the police take care of this." One of the officer said in an effort to calm him down, but there was not calming down for Lincoln, he had heard everything.
"You...you killed them?"
It took a few moments for the guy to realize what was happening, this was one of Lynn's children; he have heard about his children, but he thought that all of them were girls. Nevertheless this only made it better; he grinned, mocking the guy who had just lost his parents, adding salt to the wound.
Lincoln just stood there, observing the guy with an expressionless face. But in a matter of seconds everything escalated.
Lincoln lunged at him, knocking the man to the ground and making him wail in pain. Under the astonished gaze of the officers who didn't know how to react, Lincoln began to unleash his wrath on this pathetic excuse of human being.
The bastard was cuffed, he couldn't do anything to block the vicious impacts of that white-haired guy; he received punch after punch, elbow after elbow on the face as Lincoln watched him with murderous intent.
"YOU KILLED THEM! YOU FUCKING KILLED THEM!" He kept yelling at the now barely conscious criminal. The officers were astonished, unable to do anything but watch; if it was up to them they'd let him kill him right in the spot. But then they remembered that, unfortunately, they had to stop him.
They stopped a well deserved punch that was aimed right at his face and got him off the criminal. Lincoln struggled, kicked, cursed the officers for stopping him; he wanted him dead and was more than willing to be the one to claim his head.
By the time Lincoln stopped the guy was in pretty bad state: some of his teeth were missing, his eyes were swollen, his nose was broken and his face overall was a bloody mess. His chest, going up and down hurt like hell thanks to his broken ribs and his injured leg got even worse. It was a miracle that he was still alive.
As the officers took Lincoln away with the threat of tasing him, the criminal was being taking away in the same ambulance where his leg was treated. The officers were just doing their job, but deep inside they couldn't just blame him for trying to murder that son of a bitch. They explained to him that he would be serving from fifty years to life in prison for double homicide while his men would face up to thirty years in prison. The other hostages were secured and the kid who told the police about the situation was awarded for his bravery.
Now more relaxed, Lincoln saw as the bastard who killed his parents was taking away in an ambulance. There was a shared feeling of relief amongst all the people around, a feeling that he could not share at all. The Loud sisters saw the expression on their brother's face; some understood, some others were afraid to see that part of him, a part so rarely seen that they can't even recall the last time he was genuinely mad.
Lincoln felt his anger cool down, leaving just that feeling of sadness he's been repressing for his sisters' sake. The weight of the situation finally fell on top of him, he fell on his knees and put his hands on the ground, and closing his eyes he began to cry.