Acatalepsy; auston matthews

• fifteen •

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Jessica walked down Yonge Street the following work day. Game five had come and gone, game six was later that night and Auston was busy for the day. Steve mostly worked from home, but today he wanted to meet Jessica for lunch to find out how her trip to Boston had gone.

She had purposely held back the details from Steve; he was dying to know, and she knew once she told him about the hotel hallway he was going to freakout.

She placed both headphones in her ears as she walked down the long street, she wasn't far from where she would meet Steve for lunch.

Then there was screaming from behind her. Confused she stopped and turned around to see a van barrelling down the sidewalk she was on.

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Auston was practicing his stick handling, moving a puck through other pucks. There was a competition between him, Mitch and Willy; he wanted to win. The three were the last ones on the ice and were occasionally taking shots. Mostly just messing around and laughing as they shook off the nerves for a huge game six.

Auston skated to the bench after he lost the puck, leaving Mitch to try his luck at beating Auston's best time of a minute and five seconds.

He grabbed a bottle of water and took a drink. His phone was on the bench, next to his equipment bag. They had all gotten changed and slipped on sweater since they weren't really practicing.

He hadn't heard from Jessica today. They had talked at the airport the next day before Jessica flew home. He hadn't realized how fast he was falling for the reporter, but he was falling fast.

There was a notification on his phone about Toronto, which was weird since the Sportsnet app rarely gave notifications about the city.

"Yonge Street Van Attack in Toronto, What We Know"

"Yonge street?" Auston whispered to himself wondering why he felt the street was important. "Wait- No."

He immediately scrolled through his texts with Jessica to figure out what the address of her office was. There was a pit growing in his stomach and he suddenly felt ill. As he scrolled and found the address of her work he stepped off the ice grabbing the first bucket he could find and threw up in it.

"Dude you okay?" Mitch called from across the ice and William and the other boy skated over.

They both stepped off the ice and towards Auston who had walked partway down a hallway. Auston was pale and his phone screen had locked. He struggled to unlock his phone before he started yelling at his phone.

"Okay, take a breath and-" William tried to place a hand on Auston.

"Don't touch me," Auston snapped at his friend and finally unlocked his phone. He immediately started calling Jessica.

No answer.

He called again.

No answer.

He called again.

"Hello?" Auston could barely breath as he realized the phone had been answered. "Jess- Thank god-"

"Hello," there was a male voice on the other end of the line. Auston's heart stopped again.

"You're not Jess," Auston whispered out of breath.

The other man sounded heart broken for Auston. "No I'm not. I'm a police officer for the Toronto police. This phone was found on a sidewalk-"

"On yonge street." Auston finished the officers sentence. He puked again.

Mitch and William both had begun to google what had happened and slowly put the pieces together while Auston was on the phone.

"Jessica- she's uh- she's a brunette- uh 22 years old- absolutely gorgeous-" Auston was choked up and trying not to cry.

"What's her last name son?" the officer asked calmly.

"Summers. Jessica Summers," Auston found himself wanting to be sick again.

-

Steve was sitting in a restaurant on Yonge Street, next to a window and watching for Jessica so he could scare the hell out of her by banging on the window.

That's when he saw a flash of white drive by. He stood up and left the restaurant to look down the sidewalk. He thought he saw a car, but that wouldn't happen on a sidewalk.

Until he was watching a white van, with the warm sunlight reflecting off the paint job, driving straight down the sidewalk. It wasn't swerving or swaying, Steve didn't know what to think. His stuff was still in the restaurant as he ran down the sidewalk.

He hadn't saw a few people jump out of the way, when it clued in that Jessica would be walking towards the van from work.

Steve panicked. She wouldn't have left the office if he hadn't demanded she go out for lunch. She would have grabbed food from the food court like she always does; why today of all days, Steve kept thinking, blaming himself.

Everyone he passed who had jumped out of the way weren't Jessica. He had made it passed a few stores when he first noticed the very human objects lying around on the sidewalks. Shoes, phones, backpacks.

It was horrible.
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a/n
I tried to keep details out because of how tragic the real life attack was but my thoughts are still with those who lost their loved ones on the day of this horrible attack 💕❤️#TorontoStrong because we come together during hard times.