Shrouded

.IV.

As he stalked towards me, I was reminded of a nature documentary I watched when I was living with my third foster family. The doc was all about the circle of life, predator and prey. Jude walked like the panther the doc showed, which made me the deer. Or maybe the rabbit. I felt very small under his intense, cold stare.

Everything within me wanted to turn and run, but I was stuck to the floor, horror raging in my head. I started to hyperventilate, and was helpless to even scream as Jude raised the gun and pointed it straight at my forehead.

He was so close I could see the sweat beading on his brow. I looked into the eyes of the man I'd come to think of as a friend, and I grimaced, tears filling my eyes and flooding down my cheeks. I wanted to say something, anything, to plead for my life, but all I managed was a harsh sob. I fell to my knees.

There was a moment of tense quiet, a lull in the storm inside and out, and I wished that, if he was going to kill me, he'd just do it already.

I froze when he stroked the top of my head. I felt his hand brush through my stubbly hair, tickling a little, sliding to the back of my skull and resting on my neck, just above my shoulders. I looked up, and his face was inches from mine. His eyes were full, but the tears were not falling. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe the pistol down, leaned close and pressed a kiss to my forehead, dropped the gun in my lap, and walked away.

I heard his footsteps echoing down the hall, slowly fading as the rain and thunder began anew. I didn't watch him go, just knelt on the floor, cold seeping from the concrete through my jeans, and stared at the dead man. Strangely, I wondered what his name was. 

I'm sorry, I thought. I'm sorry.

The apartment wasn't in a bad neighborhood, and I was still sitting, staring at the man, when the storm was broken by the wails of sirens and flashing, red-blue light. Someone must have heard the shot and called the police, or maybe they were already patrolling close by.

I heard heavy boots pounding through the hall and into the room, and voices telling me to put my hands behind my back, to lay flat on the ground, to surrender without a fight and not make things difficult. The voices came as if through water or from far away. I barely registered their meaning, just sat and held the gun and stared at the man with the yellow-crimson shirt.

I felt hands on my shoulders and there came the cold click of handcuffs around my wrists, and I was hauled to my feet. The gun fell to the floor and was picked up by a gloved hand and slipped into a plastic bag. I felt numb and sagged against someone's chest.

The person holding me up grunted, struggling with my dead weight. Eventually, they scooped me up and held my limp body like I was a child. My sight was unfocused, and I could only process the vague colors of my surroundings, all muted by the continuous rain. Making everything soft, after all, I thought, and let out a humorless giggle. The officer holding me shot me a confused look, and sat me down in the back of a patrol car, positioning my listless body and fighting my pendulous arms to put the seatbelt around me. It had gotten darker since I had entered the apartments; the sky was the lazy grey-purple of twilight, shot through with thunderclouds and lightning.

I vaguely heard the officer outside the car telling me something over the thunder. Something about 'Can and will be held against you, right to an attorney...' before I stopped listening. The door beside me slammed after the officer's speech, and I stared at the back of the driver's head through the glass and mesh that separated the front from the back of the car. We began to roll away, and I moved on my own for the first time, turning to look at the apartments, at the officers still standing around it in the downpour. When I faced forward again, I caught the eye of the driver, who was watching me in the rearview mirror. He broke the stare first, pulling to the side of the road to let an ambulance have the right-of-way, and swinging back on to the path after it passed.