20 Questions

Chapter 118

Hunter

"Elijah, I swear to God, if you don't drive faster, I am going to pull you out of the driver's seat and do it myself," I growl. 

I realize that we are driving way over the speed limit, but not even a rocket could get me to Jenna fast enough.  My body is trembling so forcefully that it looks like I'm in a constant seizure.  I've chewed off every fingernail, every cuticle and maybe even the tips of my fingers.  I finally lower my hands from my mouth when the taste of copper touches my tongue.

"Sure thing, let me just attract a bunch of cops and escort them to a government hospital where there's a dead body lying on the floor of a parking garage.  Any other brilliant ideas you want to shoot my way?"

I throw myself back against my seat and cross my arms over my chest.  He's right.  The words taste nasty, even in my head, but it's the truth.  The last thing we need to do is attract a bunch of attention to this clusterfuck, putting ourselves more in the spotlight.  Jenna's parents have no idea what's going on and seeing my face and the face of their innocent daughter on the five o'clock news is not how I want to deliver that blow.  So, I look out the window as my mind drifts back to the devastation Elijah catapulted my way.

There's been an attack at Jenna's work, in the parking garage.  I don't know much, just that we need to get there immediately and send in the cleanup crew.  Griffin and Jenna are alive, but I don't know what condition they are in.

I don't know if Elijah truly doesn't know what happened, if he is following the typical male behavior of not asking enough pertinent questions, or if he is remaining tight-lipped about something he knows will destroy me.  If it's the latter, it couldn't be worse than the anxiety that comes from the unknown.  I don't care what happened to the attackers and I'm microscopically worried about Griffin, but I am downright petrified about what my wife is feeling. 

Is she scared?

Is she numb and in shock?

Is she hysterical and inconsolable?

I don't know what I'm going to find when I get there, but if something irreversible happened to my wife, I won't need a security team.  I won't need an armory of weapons.  I won't need the National Guard, Seal Team Six or a planet of fire breathing mutants.  I will find whoever did it and kill them with my bare hands, making sure they feel every bone in their body break and the dissection of their heart out of its cavity. 

I won't become my father. 

I'll become something far more monstrous.

I can't even fathom what Jenna has experienced today and how she is coping with it.  She's seen blood and guts in her profession, but it's unparalleled to seeing murder up close.  Me, my whole world was littered with violence, enveloped in bloodshed and swathed in carnage.  I carry with me visions of murder.  Death delivered by way of weaponry, combat, drugs and brutality.  I was four years old the first time I saw a dead body, and I didn't just pass by a corpse, I was an unsuspecting spectator to the knife fileting a man's flesh from limb to lung.  While other four-year-old's were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and shooting their parents with Nerf guns, I was watching a man bleed out, the life draining from his eyes until his body succumbed to the injuries.  Not even a thousand counselors, psychotherapists and hypnotists can wash those images that were burned into my retinas and mind.

Did it fuck me up?

Yeah, I'd say it did, but it didn't break me.  It toughened me and made me watch my six a little closer.  It made me hold on to the important things a lot tighter because I knew how quickly they could be taken away.  It jaded me and made me lose faith in humanity, seeing how sadistic people can be and how little regard they have for human life.  It taught me early on that immortality was a myth that only exists in science fiction.