Don't Let Me Go

nine

Being a social butterfly she was, Grandma went to greet people, dragging me along. I internally groaned, starting to regret my presence in this occasion. I barely knew these people, who seemed to remember my childhood better than me and take hugging to a whole new level. It was downright embarrassing despite the warm sense of familiarity to be among them, a feeling of to be belonged.

Even I started to regret refusing David's offer to join his group of teenagers earlier when both Dante and David were coming to greet us, after their mother practically yelling at them.

And I must say that Dante looked even more gorgeous in his formal clothes. It wasn't that I didn't long for people my age, but I wasn't quite sure on how to act in front of Dante. This weird hormonal driven pull or whatever and an unexplained jealousy toward a certain girl that was currently standing a little bit too close to Dante, for my liking, were raging inside of me I might explode.

I was actually afraid of what I might do if I was near them. Tragedy might repeat and I had nowhere else to go. So when Grandma, Diana and few other women got into heated discussion about what kind of tea would make best companion of what kind of cake, I excused myself. Frankly, I felt overwhelmed and my energy seemed draining gradually. I just needed to freshen up a bit before the ceremony started in a couple of minutes.

I walked into the church's wing and walked the short hall to locate a small restroom. In front of it there were view patches of grass and flowers, but not enough to be called a garden, where The Pieta sculpture stood and a small stone bench next to it. After I splashed a bit of cold water to my face, I chose to sit at the bench for a moment to calm my nerves and make sure to keep my raging hormones at bay.

It was close to the back exit and had a very good angle because from where I was sitting, I had good view of almost all part of the church, including the inside part, yet I didn't think it worked the other way around, there were a colorful glass divider and some cascading flowery plants to give shade.

People started to enter the church, most took front seats but some chose to linger at the back rows. Just as I stood and fixed my dress a little bit before I walked back into the church, a loud scream was heard followed by few gun shots. Startled, my gaze focused on the main entry of the church to saw commotion of people followed by few men in black and wearing full face mask, they were holding guns and shouting at the people. Few children were crying and their mothers were sobbing too, while the men looked mad, like really mad. What the hell? And I didn't think they were robbers.

My hands were shaking and instinctively I decided to go hiding behind the big sculpture. I enchanted the 'ignore me' spell over and over again, in between prayers for our safety. I was in church so it surely had a good chance for it to be heard.

One of the men had a little girl as a hostage, he had a knife on her neck. The other men were pointing guns at the people and one of them asked for baby Alice in Sarah's arms, demanding her to give her baby. Brandon was enraged, but few men hold him back. I could see David was standing in front of his mother, while Dante and his friends were standing next to his father and a few other men from their village, facing the bad guys.

Grandma was the only person that looked calm, though I could sense her worried emotion inside. She was discreetly shifted her gaze to my direction and nodded briefly as if she knew that I was here. I could sense there was some movements in the air, like a soft wind blew, flicking some candles for seconds, and I just knew that Grandma was trying to enchant some spells and she asked me to try as well. But which spell?

Suddenly one of the bad men fell and the others looked bewildered, but one of them, maybe the leader, kept his calm and pointed his gun at Mr. De Lucca -Dante's father. He asked something which I couldn't hear clearly. Mr. De Lucca answered briefly and the bad guy asked again, they talked for about a minute when suddenly he shot Mr. de Lucca.