Saving: Protecting: One Direction *UNDER MASSIVE EDITING*

TWELVE

TWELVE

JACK

The call came at 3:19 AM.

It lasted for exactly three and half minutes.

By 3:23 AM I was violently spilling the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

My lungs couldn’t pull enough oxygen from the air as ragged, hyperventilating, gasps choked the dinner from my body. Over and over my stomach emptied itself, my hysterical breaths echoing off the porcelain bathroom. When there was nothing left to vomit up, not even air, I felt my body collapse against the bathroom’s shag rug. At that point, it was as though my mind had become a separate entity from my body.

Dully, I was aware of the sweat pouring off my body in torrents, of my overheated head resting against the cold tiled floor. I could hear the moanish noises coming out of my strangled throat. There was no physical pain to be felt, but the mental pain was what had my mind spinning in insane circles, unable to process or think clearly.

There’s been a problem. Your brother’s grave has been disturbed. The…remains have been stolen.

The apathetic man’s monotonous voice swirled in my mind, unapologetic for the grief that he was causing me. I thought I’d never deal with something more painful than my brother’s death.

I was wrong.

Losing the most important person in your life is like losing a part of yourself. When they died, a part of you died with them. But at least there’s closure, right? At least there’s a funeral where you can say your final goodbyes. At least there’s a grave to go visit when life gets too hard. But knowing that his body had been stolen from its final, peaceful, resting place, that he had been taken from me twice…that was pain beyond anything imaginable.

Time had no meaning as I laid there, shaking on the merciless bathroom floor, staring at the blank ceiling. I watched, my mind screaming and over-thinking as the room gradually lightened. Unfortunately, I had worked with crimes before that involved grave robbers. Even worse for my grieving mind, I knew the slim chances of recovering the entire body.

My head couldn’t even begin to process who would do. Someone who held a grudge that had lasted beyond death? It wouldn’t be unlikely, given my brother had been a high ranking police officer. Some sicko who had just happened to stumble across my brother’s grave, deciding for his own twisted reasons that this was the body he’d be leaving with tonight? Unlikely, but not unheard of.

A faint knock sounded at my bedroom, managing to drag me from my torturous thoughts. I didn’t answer, my body couldn’t find my mouth. “Jack? Are you awake?” Niall’s voice called from the closed door. The familiar Irish accent somehow managed to pull me from my stupor, but it was in a deadened voice than I managed to answer, “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

A shower was a necessity, seeing as my t-shirt and shorts were soaked in sweat. I didn’t dare look in the mirror when I stepped out of the shower, too afraid of what would be written across my face. It was with shaking hands that I pulled on new clothes, barely paying attention to if they matched or not.