Chapter 7
Everything started to play back to her in slow motion as she started to talk. "The New Orleans PD was hard up for cops, many left after the storm simply because they had nowhere to go, or because they had families that didn't want to stick around. It was a mess. Even worse than what they showed on T.V.-which I know was bad-" She paused and looked at him, "where were you during this time?"
"Chicago, and yeah, I've heard just how bad it was. Mass rioting, looting, a veritable rendition of hell." He looked at her, wanted to touch her but knew she wanted space.
"Yeah," she nodded, "Jack didn't want me to go back when I did. He and Duncan had to get back to work, so for a while they drove in and out of the city, but when I demanded to be taken back so I could start cleaning up the bar, they drove me in."
"Where was your dad?"
"By that time, he'd been dead and buried for 3 years," she replied and rubbed her hands on the front of her jeans. "So, Jack dropped me off at the bar, handed me one of his guns, and told me to keep it on me at all times while he wasn't around. I remember laughing and following him outside, echoing his sentiment to be careful, then hearing a lot of commotion. I turned around at the same time he did, saw a flash of silver and heard some yelling before he pushed me to the ground." She flinched, as if she had just heard the gunshot again. "It was so loud," she whispered and sucked in a breath that muffled a sob.
"Who was it?"
"I don't know, some gang. They were the ones who mostly came back first. I don't know the exact specifics, but I guess Jack and Duncan were working on a case against the group before the storm. Anyway, they knew who Jack was, they knew who I was, and I remember Duncan telling me that they were after me." She paused, looked at Alex, then continued. "He took a bullet that was meant for me."
"Don't," Alex started, reaching to her. "Don't blame yourself. You didn't pull the trigger, you didn't kill him." She shook her head.
"That's just it, Alex. The bullet didn't kill him. They beat him to death. He was pushing me inside the bar when they all jumped on him. God, there were at least 6 of them. I don't know," she shook her head again as the tears started to fall. "I didn't think, I ran inside, grabbed the gun from the bar and ran back out shooting. It was too late." She remembered hitting at least three of the men with her frantically wild shots. Remembered being told that one of them was in critical condition, but what stuck out in her mind the most was the fact that she had already been too late to save her brother. "If I hadn't known it was him...." Her voice trailed off as she closed her eyes against the visual memory-Jack laying on the sidewalk, beaten, bloody, and broken to an unrecognizable condition. "I just screamed." The screams echoed in her head. A wild rush of tears rolled down her cheeks and she used her shaking fingers to fight them back, to wipe them away. Suddenly she sniffed, pulled herself back and stiffened her shoulders. "We had the funeral about a week later. I had Jack cremated. After that, I left the bar in Jake's hands for a while. I couldn't be there, in that city that had taken so much from me. So I took a job at the MET, moved to New York for a while. The only time I came back was when they had the trial.
"I stayed there, in New York, for a long time. And I hated it," she said with a laugh.
"When did you go back?"
"About six, maybe eight months ago I guess," she said with a shrug. "I haven't talked about this for a long time. When Duncan tried to get me into a grief counselor I refused. I didn't need one, or so I thought."
"What did your mom do? And your sister?" He asked, taking her hand and pulling her to his side. She turned into him, buried her face into his chest and breathed in his scent, and exotic mixture of soap, sweat, and sweet man.
