It's Code For You (Parallel NurseryVerse Series)

Chapter 16- I Learned From You

(Quick emotional check in! How is everyone after the last chapter? We all need therapy? Me too. Read on, readers. Read on...)

"Reece, it's Siobhan." Autumn stared at the woman on the floor in a state of total shock.

"What happened? Where are you?" Reece's panicked tone came through the line.

"... I have never asked you for anything. This isn't how I wanted to start."

".......Aut. What happened?" Autumn moved her focus from Siobhan to Roger's body.

"Father is dead." There was silence for a long while, Autumn began to think maybe she had lost signal. Just as she was about to hang up and try again she heard;

"I'm on my way. Is Siobhan okay?" Autumn felt guilt pool in her gut.

"Reece... Did you know Siobhan was pregnant?"

"She was- what do you mean?" Reece sounded like he was about to cry. Autumn bit her cheek anxiously.

"She's having a miscarriage, Reece." Autumn swore she could hear Reece muffle a sniffle.

"I will handle it. Get her out of there."

"The paramedics are on their way... I can't move her."

"Whatever you did- hide it. I will handle it." Autumn held her breath as she heard the words leave her brother's mouth.

"Thank you, big brother."

**

If anyone had told Reece a year before that he would be standing on a bridge that his best friend jumped off of throwing a gun that his sister killed his father with into the water below it, he would have laughed. There was no world that he could live in where either of those events would happen, and yet here he was. He had sat in his car for a half an hour staring at the bridge contemplating just exactly what it would take to make all of this disappear. It certainly would start with cleaning the gun- but Reece was going overboard. He had taken cleaner to every inch of the gun- effectively removing anything that could trace it back to Autumn. The problem was, it also made it impossible for Siobhan to tell the police about the situation she had been in. Roger had spent their whole childhoods cultivating a web of lies that they were now all trapped in and Reece felt responsible to keep everyone safe- or at least to try.

Reece stared into the water below, holding the gun close to his chest in his jacket. He tried to imagine what Charlotte felt like in that moment, to be standing on a ledge with so little belief in herself that she had to jump. He ran his gloved fingers over the gun slowly. So many things in his life had changed so suddenly. His whole life had led up to this point and what did he really have to show for it? A failed 20 year relationship and an ex who was going to marry his sister. With his father dead, who would take over the nursery? Was he now a jobless loser on top of everything else? He of all people wanted his father gone, and in no way was he mourning the loss of him. But something about it all felt so empty, devoid of feeling. He thought he would feel happy- or at least feel something.Instead he just felt... numb.

His phone rang in his pocket, interrupting his thought spiral. He gripped the gun to his chest with one hand and used his other to pull it out from his pocket.

**MIA**

Mia's name flashed across his screen incessantly, much like her presence in Reece's life. He pressed the green button and brought the phone up to his ear.