Watching her talk from the doorway, her hair loose around her face, that look of anger and devastation mixed into a harrowing sight for what was usually a sunny disposition, I couldn’t bring myself to come closer, to see up front what some monster had done to her. What some monster could be doing to my sister right now.
Right now she was talking about what she could remember, our last moments together before she got in the damn car with Wynonna and Dolls was becoming frustrated at the lack of information, his reaction was sparking a deep fury in me. For pity’s sake she was dead earlier today, resuscitated on scene I had been informed. Since I’d heard those words, I had just had an image of her lying in the snow, covered in blood, eyes open and glassy, all alone. It played on a loop along with a scene of her taking her last breaths knowing that there was no one there, that out of everything that could have ever been, it was too late. My traitorous mind liked to replace the one of her still body with that of Wynonna’s to torture me.
She was dead. My sister could be, though that wasn’t a certainty and what little shred of hope I had held on to the information that until otherwise Wynonna was alive. But with Nicole, it was fact, her heart had stopped. For a brief moment her blood had stopped pulsing. Her lungs were still with stale air. In that moment, she would never smile and never wave at me again. Our last meeting would have been me not inviting her to a party, her having to turn up to my home thinking I had a killed a human. That our last interaction was to avoid her gaze and awkwardly wave like a stupid teenager.
Shaking my thoughts away, I zoned back in on Nicole, her eyes shut, trying desperately to remember anything and be of some use. The stitches above her eye and the bandage on her palm, doing nothing but reminding me of the trauma she had endured. She hadn’t just been knocked out, her heart simply stopping. No this demon had hurt her, caused her pain, before ending her life.
“I couldn’t understand why my chest was hurting…” Her gravelly voice reached me as her face turned to a scowl. If the superficial injuries of her were anything to go by, I couldn’t imagine what internal damage had been done. I had read the medical report, signs of strangulation, severe trauma to chest, lacerations to her palm and temple. As little as I feel I know Nicole. I know Nicole. In that wonderful mind of hers, she would be replaying every blurred scene, thinking of a thousand things she could have done different. A hundred reasons why it should have been her and not my sister that was still out there. Ironically she was probably experiencing survivor’s guilt, despite her being the one to die for that brief period.
Tears were running down my face, the feeling of dampness on my cheeks the only thing letting me know that I was crying. And of course, standing here, helpless and unable to do anything for anyone, had just made Nicole apologize to me as if she had anything to be sorry for. That she shouldn't just be lucky she's alive after dealing with a reverent. That I could possibly have wanted her to be the one that had been kidnapped.
So with that, I tried to reassure her, before the breakdown I could feel building happened, and quickly rushed away before I could upset her anymore.