Being forced to move so many states away from all that he once knew, Nessa was nervous to tackle his new life. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Nessa to meet a plethora of unique individuals who welcomed him into their lives:
The optimist, the k...
It felt too familiar. The red and blue flashing lights, the crowding as officers rushed to ask him a million questions at once — as though he had enough time to recover from what his stalker had tried to do to him. It felt cruel. Nessa wasn't sure that he could cry anymore than he already had, yet he still wanted to. His parents were going to be livid.
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He tried to stay as close to Nessa as he could, but they refused to make it easy on him. It seemed that Nessa could sense the struggle and panic, because he took the first opportunity that he could to grab Venice's hand and hold it tight to his side. Even when they were supposed to be separated, Venice simply wouldn't let go of Nessa's hand. For the first time in a very long time, Venice was comforted by touch. Even when he would sleep in the same bed as Ilya, they rarely made contact with one another. It was more the comfort of a strong person that finally lulled him to sleep, rather than the act of intimacy.
Standing in the midst of police officers and paramedics, Venice had never felt so small. He recalled a few months ago when he was lying awake and staring at the ceiling waiting for Ilya's alarm clock to go off in the other room. At the time he had convinced himself that his routine would never change no matter what he did. But in that moment, he realized that having a routine was actually the biggest change his life had ever had.
What would he say when they asked about his parents? Would he say that his mother was dead? That he didn't even know who his father was? What about the Polyakovs? They were the only people that he could think to contact. They were the only family that he had ever had. Sometimes he wasn't even sure that Paris counted. Maybe he had been too young to appreciate her, but the older he got the less he understood her parenting methods.
His free hand was shaking and covered in bandages. It wouldn't stop no matter what he did. He could still feel the weight of that switchblade in his palm as if it had never left. Nessa had thrown it down a vent. It would never be seen again. It was the same knife that he had used to kill Kirill — Mr. Polyakov's skeevy brother. That knife had been in his throat. Now it was gone.
Venice would never forget the way they had hauled Kris' body out on a stretcher. It was a different feeling to know that the perpetrator would survive.
Maybe a part of him wished that it had been the original knife that he lost. The one that had been given to him by Paris, and was once soaked in her murderer's blood. But it hadn't. He still had it, though it thankfully wasn't on him anymore. Venice had made sure to stash it in Nessa's locker right before the police showed up.
A tall man with a large belly and clean cut face was asking Venice all kinds of questions. He wanted to know how he found Nessa, what he had done to save him, how he knew to do what he did.
What did he say when he saw you? Why didn't you just call the police immediately? What is your affiliation to the victim?
