BLAKE | a. hotchner

22

A/n: This is kind of a short chapter buuuut, yeah.

"He molested you, Alex, tortured you, experimented on you!" He yelled, tears streaming down his face. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my father cry.

"Stop blaming Josh for your actions, he's fucking dead!" I spat, my hate for him so painstakingly obvious.

"I'm telling the truth!" He pleaded.
I shook my head in disbelief. "You're lying, you're fucking lying!"

"I'm not lying!" He spat, "have you ever stopped and thought about why he always was so nice to you? Why you never fought like normal siblings do?"

"Fuck you," I said through gritted teeth. "Fuck. You."

"I never gave you those scars, Alex," he pointed at my chest. "I would never, ever, hurt my daughter like that."

"Of course, because you are such a fucking picture perfect dad, aren't you?" I narrowed my eyes in his.

"Don't you see? That's why I had to kill him, he was hurting you!" My breath got caught in my throat as soon as the words left his mouth.

"You what?" I whispered.

"One evening when your mother was preparing dinner, you and your brother had sneaked down to the basement." He stood up straight, voice calm but words dripping with deadly anger. "I went to check on you when I found you bound to a table, naked, Josh was experimenting with fire and put that burn on chest." His blue eyes now filled with great sadness, "I couldn't let him hurt you, I had to kill him."

And that's when everything came back to me, crushing me like waves. It was not my father who had put that burn on me that summer evening, it was Josh. It was not my father's blue eyes that had entered my room that night, it was Josh's. It was not my father who had run the knife between my breasts that early winter morning, it was Josh. I remembered him coming into my room, saying our father was an alcoholic, that he was the one who had hurt me, molested me. Josh made me believe I was safe with him, that he was going to protect me as long as I did what he told me to do.

I suddenly found myself very angry at my brother, I had fucking honored him at Garcia's apartment on the day of the dead. He didn't deserve a spot next to my friend's loved ones, next to Maya. I looked at the green jacket I was wearing, his jacket. I immediately took it off and threw it to ground, not wanting anything more to do with it.

We were interrupted when I heard Aaron yell from the basement, I couldn't make out the words but knew I had to get there.

"Go, Alex, we got him." Morgan said and I nodded in response.

I made my way down the staircase and found everything as we had left it. When Josh died, no one dared show their faces in the basement. It was his place, his and his only. His trophies for his inventions on science fairs was still standing on a shelf and all his books on anatomy still in the bookshelf next to his poster of Albert Einstein, he was such a nerd. I suddenly felt a strong want to tear the place apart, to get rid of every trace of his existence. I wanted him out of the house, I wanted him gone.

I looked around only to find Aaron leaned over another body. I rushed over and found his hands covering a wound in the person's stomach. My eyes traveled up the body and soon the familiar brown eyes met mine, it was Rose. I quickly got to my knees and pressed my hands flush against her bloody stomach while Aaron tried to find something to stop the bleeding.

"You found me," Rose said hoarsely.

"Yeah, we're here now, everything's gonna be okay." I said, trying not to let the tears stream down my face.

"It's okay, Alex," Rose's hand came up to caress the side of my face. "You can let me go, I will rest knowing you have people who are looking out for you." I looked at her in disbelief, did she just say that? How dare she? How dare she be willing to leave me?

I shook my head as the first tear rolled down my pale cheek, "never, you're staying right where you are." I didn't mean for it to come out as a whisper, but it did. "Shit, Rose, I screwed up! I'm so, so sorry!" I cried out.

"It's okay," she said, her voice soft and caring.
"No, it's not okay!" I almost yelled, "you have wasted your life on me and I'm sorry!"

"Nothing has ever been a waste when it comes to you, Alex. Not my time nor my thoughts, I don't regret anything about my life with you, even the times we were apart." She brushed away a few tears from my right cheek.

"How can you say that? This is my fau- I did this t-to you," it was hard to form sentences with tears stuck in my throat and I felt bad for looking so weak.

"We all die, Alex, sooner or later and you need to stop blaming yourself." Rose said.

"Where is the goddamn ambulance?!" I screamed at Aaron who was on the phone, probably with the medics. "Shit," I whispered under my breath.

"It's okay, Alex, I promise you it's okay," she said as she took her last breath.

"No, no, no, no!" My forehead went to her stomach as the tears melted together with her blood. My hand grabbed her shirt tightly, holding on to it as if it was my only lifeline, like I would float away if I ever let go.

I could feel Aaron's comforting hand on my shoulder, but I didn't want it. I didn't want his pity, I didn't want his comfort, I wanted Rose back. Fuck, this wasn't supposed to happen, this was not how it was supposed to go. I took a deep breath and shivered at the sensation of her perfume going up my nostrils.

I wanted to kill someone and I wanted to die and I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could because she was never coming back.
Something had happened, something that no amount of alcohol could ever make me forget.