BOOK 3 -- XYRENE: THE GIRL WHO TOLD THE TRUTH

CH5: Good and Bad News

“Xyrene? Xyrene!” Rafael cupped her cheek, tears streaming down his cheeks as he shook her a few more times before looking around. Once the ambulance arrived, he quickly carried her to them in hopes to keep her awake. But by the time she was taken care of, they were too far too late. 

Xyrene didn’t make it. 

Rafael refused to believe it of course, and so he continued begging. “P-Please, t-try again, m-maybe it’s because you guys didn’t try hard enough! Please!”

“Pasensya na, but it’s too late already. Trust me, we tried our best but to no avail. I’m sorry.” Says the doctor before he walked away. Leaving Rafael too stunned to speak. Xyrene turned out to be someone so dear to him, and it pained him deeply that she was gone. He blamed himself for not being there earlier, and now he set a new goal for himself. 

To finish what they have started.

And so he ran back to the venue, looking around to find De la Corte. And by the moment he found him, Rafael gripped his shirt. “You-- how dare you?!” he raise dhis voice. his breath growing shallow by the minute as he stared deeply in the mayor's eyes. “You’re so horrible, you know that?! Binaril mo yung kaibigan ko and you’re what? Just worrying about yourself?!”

“No, how dare YOU expose me when everything is going so well for me na, ha?! You both have the audacity to ruin things when things are going so perfectly for me?!”

Rafael raised a fist, so ready to lay a punch on his old wrinkled face but the police were quick enough to hold him back before he eve starts a brawl.

“Sir, tama na!” Says one of the officers. “Dadalhin na natin siya sa station, so please step back na kuya. Umuwi ka na.” And they proceeded to bring the hot headed mayor to their car and drove off to the station.