Let Me Love You | A.G

XXXIV

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He always loved when it rained. To him, it was the best time of the day.

He especially loved when it rained at night. It was a natural lullaby for him as a kid. Well, that and the sound of gunshots and police sirens. But the rain was always his favorite sound.

I always told him to get as far away from Florida as possible. Now, the tables have turned and I'm the one staring at my brother's lifeless body as he flatlines right in front of me.

He was gone and finally put to rest; protected from the horrors of the real world.

And just like he always loved, it was pouring rain from the other side of the big, hospital glass windows.

I practically stood there, watching as they shut off the machines and placed a sheet over his face.

"Come on champ, it's time to go," I felt a hand being placed on my shoulder, turning to see Phil, wondering how he could stay together after all that's happened.

Meanwhile, I'm slowly breaking from the inside.

"I can't leave him," I somehow managed to say barely above a whisper.

He lets out an empathetic sigh, "He's gone, Jayce.  There's nothing else they can do—"

"I'm not leaving Phillip!" I shouted, quickly regretting the fact that I yelled at the one person who felt the exact same way as me, "I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. I'll uh—go get Ariana for you," And with that, he left before I could get another word out.

A few short moments later, my girlfriend entered the room, causing me to turn around in my seat.

"Let me guess, he sent you in here to talk to me?" I asked with a scoff.

"He in fact did," She walks over towards me until she was right in front of me, bending down to my eye level, "You can't snap at people like that babe."

"I know, it was an accident," I told her softly, looking back to the corpse of my sibling, "I can't leave him though."

"Jay..." She softly trails off, "We have to so we can give him a proper funeral. You know he at least deserves that."

I quickly reached up to wipe my face as a small tear fell, causing me to reluctantly agree, "Yeah, you're right, I gotta get outta here."

Ariana reaches up to grab my face in her hands, giving me a small smile, "Let's go home."

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Tossing, turning, back, forth; it just won't stop. Every night I just end up waking up with tears streaming down my face, drenched in puddles of sweat.

It had been a few weeks since the incident and we were back in Florida, awaiting Mac's funeral date. We never bothered telling police because we knew there was so little they could do with the lack of evidence they had.

Plus, I knew who did this and I wasn't going to rest properly until I found each and every one of them.

I was awake this particular night, planning my next attack.

It was only a matter of time before they would strike again and I had to be ready, whenever and wherever.

Getting up from the bed Ariana and I shared, I swiftly made my way out of the room, gently closing the door behind me and making my way down the hallway, out onto the balcony where I leaned up against the railing and pulled out my phone.

"Hello?" The deep voice spoke through the phone as he answered after a couple rings.

"Hey man, I wasn't expecting you to answer this late," I started to grimace at the fact that I interrupted one of my closest friend's sleep.