Jett

44

I made a New Years Resolution that at least one of my stories would be completed this year and gosh darn it I'm going to do that even if it kills me. For you that means chapters up until 47 have been uploaded and the final three will be coming in some time before midnight tonight.

The apartment was silent when they got back.

It seemed that they were all talked out after they had argued about what to do with Jazz's body. Jett had said to leave it behind; it was just a corpse, no longer the same person they had known. It was a practical choice. The body would just slow down the getaway. If Kayden had learnt anything about post-trauma Jett it was that she certainly was practical. Jinx and Naziah thought otherwise, arguing that they at least owed her a proper funeral.

Kayden had listened to the argument feeling beyond dizzy. All he could think about were the weeks after Marlow's death. Everything was rushing back to him. Watching Mark's family make funeral arrangements while trying exceptionally hard not to crumble. She was the only person he'd ever lost before and he hadn't wanted to do that again.

In the end they didn't have to come to an agreement, the people Jett worked for had been monitoring their progress from afar and turned up at the house before the police could. Stern looking men and women in suits who nodded in acknowledgment at Jett and carefully avoided eye contact with the other girls' tear stained faces. They were the ones who took Jazz's body while Kayden and the girls fled.

After that it was just... silence.

Naziah curled up on the couch in the living room, hugging a pillow to her chest and sobbing into it, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was still covered in blood.

Jett had fled to the room she had shared with Jazz. After the door closed with a small click, he heard something shatter that sounded like it could have been glass. Kayden was almost glad for the sound. It was a sign that she did feel something about the death.

He remained hovering in the doorway as he watched them all fall apart before his eyes.

He wasn't sure what to do. He felt numb inside, he had been detached from the entirety of the events and he was still waiting for everything to kick in. It was as if his brain was acknowledging that the appropriate response would have been to cry or something but his body seemed to be in too much shock to fulfil such a requirement.

He took up camp outside of the apartment, the same place he normally sat when he called his mum. (A small part of him actually did want to call her, just for that sense of normalcy once more but he knew he wouldn't be able to make it through the call without spilling his guts to her.)

He wasn't quite sure what to do.

He hugged his knees to his chest as he stared unseeingly at the apartment door opposite him. The numbness had begun to give way to panic, though he couldn't quite comprehend why. Everyone who might have been able to hurt him was dead. Excluding the men who had worked for Robert.

'But they were more like staff than henchmen. They wouldn't come to avenge him... right?'

His vision swam as everything he had been suppressing since Jazz was shot sucker punched him in the stomach. The guilt and fear was overwhelming.

He didn't feel as if he had the right to miss Jazz. He hadn't known her that long and he certainly wasn't as close to her as he was with Jett, or even Jinx. Yet, he still felt as if something had been ripped out of his chest that could never be replaced.

He wanted her to come waltzing down the hallway with her signature smirk. Her hips swaying and eyes glistening as she laughed at his worry.

"You didn't really think I was dead, did you?"