Save Us From Their Long Run

Clash of the Agents

***Swears***

Alex POV

She still hadn't been awake for more than ten minutes at a time. She mumbled in her slumber, shouting and crying out. I sat there in her room, trying to understand the damn note Rose had given her while she suffered. It was all I could do for her, because how do you comfort someone who only shows emotion in her sleep?

It's been, maybe four days with him gone, possibly more, but I wouldn't know. I didn't bother keeping track of the days anymore. I wanted to tell Avery that everything was going to be alright, but even I didn't believe myself, because even if everything else is resolved there would never be someone to fill the gap in our chests.

The better part of staying in Avery's room was that I didn't have to face everyone else. Breanna was always solemn, walking silently through the halls and running hands through her hair, not knowing what to do. She went to Toby for consolation, and he did the same to her. And I was left with no one to really talk to, unless I wanted to burden someone else.

I wanted to tell them how much it hurt. Like an ice cold hand was gripping my heart, and I was doing everything I could to stay warm. I ached to describe what I had seen that day, even if it had been the same thing everyone else saw. How I looked over the edge, expecting to see him calling for help, because I only knew two people who could suffer a direct hit, fall off a building, and survive.

Instead I found his lifeless body. There wasn't any shallow breathing to reveal he was holding on, no gasps for air. Just silence, and too much blood loss to come back from. I needed to cry out and get angry and throw things, because if I was good at anything it was keep my emotions in check until no one was watching.

I could still remember, and quite vividly did it come back during my nightmares, the way Breanna choked up, the pained expression on Toby's features, Caylen turning around and curling up into a ball beside the helipad. But there was one thing that was stuck in replay in my head, the biggest portrayal of utter despair in Avery's motions. She fell to her knees, looking up at the sky as it began to pour, hands limp at her side. I watched her eyes drain of color, her mouth start to form words, but she was an incoherent mess.

I wanted to scream, to run away and never look back, to forget everything, but I couldn't. "His body" she managed to breath out through her whispers. I walked to the edge with Toby, whose expression alone made me was to break down, but as I reached the edge all I saw were the puddles of blood where Tyler had once been dangling above, next to the mad man that had shot himself as well.

"Where is he?!" I had yelled, and suddenly Avery was no longer mumbling. I held everything in for the time being and pushed everyone toward the helipad, urging them to get on. Breanna had roused Lydia from her induced slumber and lead her into the helicopter, explaining as much as she could without bursting into tears.

Avery still sat there on the ground, her clothes soaked through and she had begun to whisper to herself. I ran to her, picking up her limp body and carrying her through the door, but my knees almost buckled when her words became coherent enough to understand.

She would hate herself later for becoming so useless in a situation like this, because I knew her. She would maybe cry and get angry and spiteful for some time, but I prayed sometimes that she wouldn't remember what she was mumbling, "I can't wake up. Please I just want to wake up".

She would hate herself for being so weak.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Toby POV

Alex stayed with her all the time, feeding her when Breanna was not feeling up to it. Almost every night I would hear my bedroom door open, and her small figure would slip into the room.Stealing a pillow from me, she would lay on the blow up matress I had discovered in Lydia's storage closet and set up in my room. I began listening to music before I slept, because if there was one thing I couldn'tdo is listen to my sister cry in her sleep.