chapter 149 Forty-Seven
Evelyn’s POV
The stream shows April walking through the hospital corridors with a gun in her hand. April walks
up the corridors before walking into a ward out of sight. The live stream continues to y when you
hear a bang. Rnd switches the TV off and all eyes go to me before I walk over grabbing the remote
from Rnd and turning the TV back on. My heart thumping against my chest as I flick through the
channels trying to find the news report again. Rnd tries to take the remote from me, but I snatch it
? 2024 N?v/el/Dram/a.Org.
away from him. I need to know; I need to know what happened. Where Lana was, my mind racing the
cold tendrils of fear creeping into me, my stomach dropping as I break out in a cold sweat instantly. My
hands shaking as I clutch the remote before frantically flicking past the channel. I press the back
button, and a news anchor was standing out the front of the hospital. Police blocking entry to the
hospital behind her.
The shing of police lights flickering against the building as cops were running around trying to
secure the hospital, people running from the building inplete chaos.
“What you just seen on screen was the wife of the well-respected constable Derrick Tanner. The
reportsing from inside is that a double murder, suicide. We believe the youngest victim of the
double homicide is the adopted daughter, fourteen-year-old, Lana Tanner. The girl has been residing
with Mrs Tanner while her husband recovers in hospital. It is not known what caused the sudden these
sudden events to unfold but it is tragedy we may never understand.”
Three imagese on the screen, a picture of April, one of Derrick in his uniform before the fire
ravaged him andstly a picture of Lana. Her beautiful face full of light, the picture-perfect girl next
door. My lungs restrict, my legs buckling underneath me as I stare at the screen. I could see the news
on around me. Couldn’t think straight as I stared nkly into space.
This is my fault, I told Thaddeus not to kill her even though he wanted to. That was a mistake, I
killed the only sister I ever had because I didn’t want to live with the guilt of taking April away from her.
But April not only took her husband’s life but that of Lana’s before taking her own. I killed her, I set off
the chain of events that lead to her death, if only I listened to them. If only I never went to that house. If
only I told Thaddeus to kill her, Lana would still be here.
My breathing faster in short puffs with the realization that just dawned on me. I killed her, the
closest person to family I ever had was dead. The person I was willing to kill for died because I wanted
to believe April still had good left in her, that her understanding was only tainted that she wasn’t to
me for her actions. Thaddeus was right, April deserved death, but Lana didn’t deserve this. This was
never meant to affect her, I thought I was protecting her by letting April live because I was afraid, she
would end up back in the system, the system no child wants to be a part of. My idiocy killed her. My
failure to see what she was capable of killed Lana. The little girl I fought to protect for an entire year
was now dead, everything I did was for nothing but more importantly my mistake killed her.
Orion POV
The moment Lana’s picture came up on the screen she buckled, her legs going out from
underneath her, her nails digging into her palms so hard she was drawing blood. She looked hollow as
she continued to stare at the screen, eyes wide and a dead look on her face as the colour drained from
her face. The emotionsing from the bond told us how destroyed she was inside, yet she didn’t say
a word, waspletely mute trapped in her own thoughts and guilt. She thought this was her fault.
Evelyn shut down,pletely shut down. She was right in front of me but with the look on her face she
might as well have been a million miles away.
Thaddeus was a raging storm inside, the darkness creeping in. Rnd was the first to move. He
hesitantly walked over to her frozen form crumpled on the floor. We could all hear the erratic beating of
her heart as it thumped against her chest. The shallowness of her breathing like she couldn’t catch her
breath. The tremble of her bottom lip before she bit down on it hard enough to draw blood. Evelyn was
breaking and none of us knew what to do other than stare at her.
Rnd reaches his hand out to brush her hair from her face and she moves away before standing,
the remote slipping from her hand and breaking apart on the floor, the batteries falling out as she
turned almost robotically, she was there right in front us, but nobody was home. Evelyn moving more
on instinct like a zombie as she walked up the stairs on auto pilot. She didn’t want anyone near her.
Didn’t want us to touch her like she knew she would break if we did.
“I need to go; I can’t be here” Thaddeus says, as the storm within him raged to magnitude levels.
He looks to the stairs wanting to go to her but won’t risk exploding near her. He felt her guilt hitting him
along with his own. He never intended for April to kill Lana along with Derrick, he wanted her to suffer
but he never imagined in a million years that Lana would also pay the price for what he imnted in her
head.
“Go” I tell him and within a blink he was gone. He was a ticking timebomb on the brink of
exploding. Rnd looks to the stairs Evelyn’s despair hitting us like a tidal wave as it crashed into us.
Racing upstairs she had locked the door. I twist the door handle till the handle snaps, falling apart in my
hand and we find Evelyn on the floor, broken. She was screaming inside, you could see it on her face
as she broke, tears rolling down her face, her face turning red and blotchy as she wailed, her hands
ripping out her hair as she lost it. Completely lost the plot.
Rnd grabs her hands stopping her from pulling chunks of hair out, her nails digging into her
delicate skin leaving scratch marks as she wed at herself, like she thought she could w away the
pain she was feeling inside.
“Orion do something” Rnd yells to me as she loses control. Rnd pulls her onto hisp
restraining her hands which were now digging into his leg above the knee as he rocked her, trying to
sooth her while she wept. Kneeling beside her, I grip her face, forcing her to look at me. Her eyes red
and puffy, dead as she stared back at me. She waspletely distraught. I let the fog slip over her, her
breathing evening out, her tears slowing, and she still tried to fight against it, as her body slowly
rxed, her hands unclenching. Rnd’s leg bleeding with the little half-moon shapes of her nails.
“Sleep Evelyn” I tell her, as Rnd brushes the hair sticking to her face from her tears. She shakes
her head trying to fight off thepulsion.
“Sleep Evelyn” I repeat, and she goes out like a light. Her eyes shutting as I force her to sleep, her
body going limp in Rnd’s arms, her head rolling back against his arm before he stands, clutching her
to his chest andys on the bed with her. I sit beside him, trying to think buting up nk. Death
was something we were used to, eventually when you live as long as we do, you lose everyone you
have ever known that is the downside to forever, the curse of immortality. Everyone you ever know will
eventually die around you. But Evelyn never experienced that, she never had family. Never stayed any
ce long enough to grow close to someone, so this was new to her, this was devasting. The closest
thing she ever had to family was now gone. Even Derrick after what he did, couldn’t break her,
Thaddeus couldn’t break her. Lana’s death though, did. This broke her, never have I seen her look so
fragile. This was going to haunt her worse than that vile man does.