In A Cabin By The Lake--- (Zerrie Fanfiction)

Chapter 25~A Flood of Panic and a Whack in the Face

Chapter 25~A Flood of Panic and a Whack in the Face

Zayn’s POV

-It felt like everything was moving at the pace of cold molasses as the details of the scene of the porch rolled through my brain. Blood so thick it looked black and sickly dripped down the stairs and through the cracks of the wood slats. It created a pool in front of the door, splattering up all the way to the windows. In the middle of the lake of ichor, a body was splayed out with the right leg bent at an unnatural angle. Panic flooded through me like a bolt of lightning as I recognized the clothes and hair. The face wasn’t facing me but I knew it, and felt it in my bones. Brittany, I know it was her, she actually killed my sister.

-- “Hey, mate, what’s wrong?” Niall asked, but it sounded like he was talking from miles away instead of feet.

- “You okay?” Sian questioned. As another person spoke, the voice seemed to come from further and further away. My knees gave out underneath me. Waliyha was dead, Brittany murdered Waliyha. The sting of the words started out numb, then turned to the sharpness of a sword embedding itself in my side. Every birthday party, family vacation, the folders, the scavenger hunt from when we were little, stung like a hornet.

- “Zayn, we don’t know that it’s her” Perrie knelt down in the grass next to me. The hair, the clothes, she’s on the front porch: I wanted to say but nothing was able to come out. She wrapped her arms around me comfortingly and I put my head on her shoulder like the time after the fire. That felt like lifetimes ago.

- “It’s okay, it’ll be okay.” she whispered kissing my temple and tightening the hug. Maybe something happened I didn’t see, and didn’t want to. Everything in the world was a blur except the body on the porch and the warmth I could feel from Perrie.

-There was a creak from the porch and my head shot up. She’s dying and writhing in pain, I thought. My thoughts were a curse. The front door was creaking open, and had pushed the body so I could see the face. Every muscle in my body seemed to relax and the whole earth let out a breath they’d been holding.It wasn’t her, it was someone else.

- “What’s going on, I’m trying to read The Mortal Instruments and I can’t hear over,” Waliyha, fully alive and breathing, asked. Before she could finish, she saw the blood and the body and screamed piercing the still evening air. Perrie released the hug and I ran up onto the porch, the blood sticking to my feet. My mum flew out of the door, the panic on her face changing to one of terror when she saw the blood.

- “Oh my god,” she held a hand to her mouth and touched Waliyha’s arm then mine with the other.

- “Come inside everyone,” Mum said her eyes glassed over. She motioned to come through the front door, then rethought and lead everyone in through the side door.

- “Tricia, what happened?” My dad pushed back from the table where he was working and hurried over to her.

- “T-there’s a dead body on the porch,” she said shakily and the words hung in the air like a thousand dead weights that stayed there as Dad plucked the phone from its hook and called the police. The heavy air stayed immobile and preventing all talking during all the time that we waited for the police to arrive.

- “Zayn,” Mum came into the living room where I was watching a rerun of an old footy match--one I’d already seen but I needed to get my mind off of the disaster somehow and everyone’s parents had come to get them so I was left with the television.

- “Yeah,” I switched the sound on mute and turned around. She was trailed by the officers who’d come to the cabin; Jace and Alec maybe?

-She opened her mouth to respond but the blond officer broke in. “You were the one at the crime scene of the girl with the poison bomb.”