Marcus

Chapter Three

Marcus ~

With his teammates surrounding him a show of support, Marcus slowly opened the file and let his eyes fall on the first picture of the scene of the bombing.

The first picture showed a male body laying on the ground with a few cuts and scrapes on his face, but looked seemingly unharmed other than the tourniquet around his thigh and dark pool of blood beneath him.

Link.

Link's eyes were sightlessly staring at the ceiling with his lips and face completely pale, obviously being void of his life blood long before the picture had been taken. Link's body had been tossed a few feet from where Marcus had administered first aid, but it was obvious that the impact from the car had ruptured an artery just before the explosion.

Marcus raked his hand down his face at the lifeless eyes of his teammate, but felt Declan's firm hand squeeze his shoulder, helping him stay grounded in the present instead of being sucked too far into the past.

The next picture was of Forest shirtless on a morgue table. His skin was pale and his features were sunken and foreign to Marcus. He read through the notes and saw the words "Cause of death - internal bleeding".

"Jesus" Marcus muttered under his breath, prompting Caleb to place a strong hand against his back in a show of support.

Continuing to flip through the small file of horrors, Marcus stopped on the next photo that had two figures in the same picture, both were almost unrecognizable with very little facial features to identify them by, but one of the arms had a massive Semper Fi tattoo that wrapped around the bicep. He'd recognize that tattoo anywhere.

Blade.

His former team leader and the one that Red had worked so hard to free from underneath the car. The sight stole Marcus' breath and he had to close his eyes to escape from the carnage for a second to regain his composure.

"Holy shit." Marcus whispered.

The air in the room felt too thick to breath and his lungs screamed for relief and seized against him, refusing to function from the shock of the photographs in his hands.

Once he had steadied his breathing enough to open his eyes again and go back for more, he read the text at the top of the picture which identified the second body that was lying a few feet from Blade to be Cutter.

I wanted so badly for this to be staged, for there to be no evidence...but this is real. It's so fucking real.

All of the hope that Marcus had been secretly harboring that day started seeping out of him with every exhale of his anguished lungs. He was angry that he had allowed a small part of himself to truly believe that they were alive, but there was no way these photos were fake, no way they could have been staged. It was real. They were gone.

He huffed a hard breath in disbelief of his own stupidity and readied his heart and mind for the next series of photos that he knew were going to be nothing short of devastating. He knew the further he flipped in the file the closer he was getting to pictures of Red and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to handle it.

Figuring it was better to go quickly, like pulling of a bandaid, Marcus flicked the page over expecting to see Caroline, but finding nothing but written documents from the morgue instead. His thumb flipped through the documentation, turning the pages back and forth in confusion.

"Where's Red?" Marcus asked, looking up at Nate.

Nate's brows were high and drawn in, practically begging Marcus not to ask him for the photos of Red.