You ready for that beer?

Nothing left to lose

No.

No, that can't have happened.

I feel like going mad when I see Street falling, hearing him crash into the water. No, no, please not. He was shot, he was stabbed, who knows how bad, there's no way he can stay overwater even for a second.

"Nooooo!"

I scream until I feel my voice breaking and I don't care how that draws the attention to me. I don't care about anything.

Street's gone. He's gone.

As I see a shadow approaching, I pull the trigger and don't let go. I literally riddle that guy, but I don't care. I go out of bullets and throw the gun away, but I don't care. I just jump at the next guy, striking and kicking frenziedly. When I spot the last one, the bloodstained blade of the knife flashes in the moonlight, and it makes me go mad. Not even knowing what I am doing, I might have broken this guy's skull and I don't care.

It hits me when all the guys are down and it's silent again. I don't have any fear. Because I have nothing left to lose.

I can't believe it's over, because it is not. Where are all the others? I wanna shoot, kick, box, make them all suffer for what they did. Killing my best friend. That's what they did. Killing the most important person in my life, killing my ... I don't know what he is to me. Was.

Street is dead.

No. He can't, I can't, I can't believe it. Maybe he's still fighting, down there, in the water? Realizing that, I run to the rail as fast as I can, ready to jump ...

Someone pulls me back. I turn around. It's Luca.

"Street!", I shout in his face. He's as scared as I never saw him before, probably because of the look in my eyes. "He's injured, pushed over the rail, he's down there."

Luca immediatly understands me. Pushing me back, he forcefully says: "Stay here, you hear me?" and then jumps over the rail himself. There's almost no noise, no splash, as he dives in.

Suddenly, the adrenaline is all gone. I can barely stay on my feet and sink down, cover my ears with my hands. The sirens, the calls of my teammates, all this becomes blurred in my head. I don't even have the strength to breathe anymore.

I don't know how long this went on. But at some point a couple of minutes later, I see a dripping wet Luca climbing up here, escorted by Tan and Hondo. His face as dark as the night around.

"Nothing", he says.

✴✴✴

The others bring me back to HQ. And I guess for every minute there is still hope inside me, for I know that there are divers searching for Street and maybe even a helicoptor, that they didn't give up, that he still could be found. It's just so hard to believe. One moment he still was there, next to me, two teammates on a regular mission - and than he was gone. Forever.

I tell you, it's strange and not at all funny to first realize you love someone when they're dead.

I don't know if I do. I really don't. But when Hondo enters the locker room and looks at us, all sitting there motionsless and silent, and he says "Nothing", I can't help but start crying. And my first thought is: Fuck, fuck, no, fuck, I love him so much.

Luca breaks into tears, too, and that's scary, because I never saw him cry. I bury my face in my hands and feel the tears running dry. I feel too empty to cry. There's no sense in it, there's no sense in anything anymore.

"We already contacted his foster parents and his mom", Hondo breaks the silence, his voice heavy with grief. "I thought ... we should take out Street's letter. He probably wrote it to his mom."

The letter.

Shit, I didn't think of that. It makes it all feel so real. He's really dead, now we have to read his letter. Or just pass it on to his mom, in this case.

Nobody says a word and I don't even look up as Hondo takes out the letter. After a few moments I wonder what happened, and then I hear his voice, full of well covered surprise.

"It's ... it's addressed to Chris"