Under the stars || James McVey

chapter twenty five

James’ POV

“I think it’s time I told someone the truth.” She croaks through tears. I try to make my way towards her but she steps back, not wanting to be touched. She nods towards the bench and Brad stalks over to it, sitting down and looking at Katherine expectantly. I hesitate for a moment but her pleading eyes and tear stained cheeks remind me that she needs to do this and me being a fool, is preventing her from doing so. I take a seat next to Brad and watch as Katie starts to pace back and forth in front of us, murmuring under her breath and sniffling every second or so.

“Katie, what’s going on?” Brad asks her. She pauses for a second and looks between the both us before turning away and resuming her pacing. “Katherine, come on. I’m getting really worried now.”

She takes a deep breath and takes a couple of steps before she’s sitting in between the both of us on the bench. “I know Bradley. I’m sorry” She replies taking his hand in hers. I feel a knot tighten inside of me at the gesture and as I watch the exchange of smiles, more knots begin to tangle.

“Don’t apologise Kate; just tell me what’s going on. Tell us,” He finishes, gesturing to me. Katherine then turns her head to face me and gives a weak smile.

“His name was William.” She says faintly.

“The guy Chloe’s brother was on about?” Brad asks. She nods and takes enough deep breath. I rest my hand on her knee and give it a reassuring squeeze. She smiles genuinely this time and places her other hand over mine and squeezes, as if we were having our own little conversation.

“He was my brother. He was… erm… he, er…” She struggles to find her words and fresh tears begin to fall down her face. I knew a little about William; he was Katherine’s younger brother and well, he wasn’t here anymore. I take it upon myself to wrap an arm around her and pull her into my chest for comfort. She nestles her face into my neck and cries harder, her whole body shaking with the action. “He d-d-d-died, last y-year and it w-was my f-f-fault.”

“Wait, what?” Brad exclaims from beside her. “How is it your fault? Katie, what happened?” I could always tell when Brad felt uncomfortable or angry, and right now, he was confused and panicked. His face wears a mixture of worry and confusion, probably the same as mine. How could this possibly be her fault?

“I was picking him up from practice and we were w-walking down the street and t-t-they came and… they… they…” She was crying hysterically now, so bad that I practically had to pull her on to my lap to stop her from shaking so much. I kept my arms secured around her as she sobbed, looking back at Brad for help. He shrugged his shoulders and kept rubbing her back soothingly, his face completely pained and scared. I’ll admit; I was scared too. Seeing Katherine cry is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever seen and it makes me want to never let go, but as her crying ceases to little sniffles, I pull away. Wiping my thumbs across her cheeks and under her eyes, I dismiss the leftover tears. She sits up straight and looks ahead, her breakdown finished for the time being.

“It was late, night time when it happened. Everything was fine, just like usual, but something kept bugging me and I didn’t know what it was. It was something about the night that seemed eerier, darker and well, barren. It was too quiet, you know, something wasn’t right. I’d always been paranoid and I’d just ridden it off as that: paranoia. We’d just made it back to the car and they just – they came out of nowhere.” She pauses and fiddles with her hands, takes another deep breath before continuing. “I tried to fend them off but I couldn’t.” She screeches, standing up suddenly and shaking herself, resuming back to the pacing she’d done previously. Having enough with it, I stood up too and took her in my arms despite her protests and pushing me away. She’d finished crying and began to breathe extremely heavily into my chest and I kept my arm securely around her.

“James?” I hear a voice whisper and I look down to see Katherine staring up at me. “It’s my fault.”

“Katie, what happened to your brother was definitely not your fault. How could you say that?” I ask her and she looks away guiltily. After a few more moments of silence she finally tells us the whole story. How her brother was shot and so was she; how she found out he’d died during his surgery when she woke up in hospital a couple weeks later; how she had never told the police what happened out of guilt for his death.

“How could you not tell them Kate? They could hurt somebody else, you need to tell somebody.” Brad tries to plead with her, but she makes move to listen to him and shakes her head in refusal. “Why not?”

“I got a visit the day I woke up. The police had come to see me, to ask questions and they were talking to my parents in the waiting room. The doctor had done more checks and I was alone in the room when she came in.”

“When who came in, Katie?” I ask.

“The woman who killed my brother.” She replies, getting a gasp of shock from both me and Brad.

“What did she say?” Brad asks her, leaning closer.

“That if I tell anyone what really happened, then she’ll kill the rest of my family.” She retorts with a shrug and a sniffle.

“Ok, this woman is psychotic!” Brad exclaims suddenly, rising from his seat and aggressively ruffling his hair. None of us dared to speak again out of fear of saying something wrong. Katherine had finally stopped crying and wipe away what was left of her tears, Brad was still stood up and mumbling to himself, and I, well I just sat there, twiddling my thumbs waiting for the perfect moment to say something.

“She may be psychotic Bradley but that doesn’t mean she won’t stick to her threats.” Katie mumbles finally. I sigh and wrap my arms around her.

“I’m sorry Katie; you shouldn’t have to go through this.” I tell her soothingly. “But Brad’s right, something needs to be done about this woman. She’s a serious threat and it puts you and your family in danger.”

“James, you don’t get it. She killed Will; what makes you think she won’t kill the rest of my family to get what she wants?”

“I don’t know, Katie. I really don’t know.”

And I didn’t.

Katherine had opened up to the both of us, telling us her darkest secret about that day and I didn’t know what to do about it. Katie made us promise not to tell anyone and neither of us would, but that still didn’t make it okay. These people were out there, they could hurt anyone and Katherine refuses to inform the police about it. She says ‘they’d be doing their jobs properly if they found out on their own’, which to some degree was acceptable but they still needed information, a lead as such, and Katie wasn’t giving them anything to go on. A part of me wanted to go to the police myself but I knew that wouldn’t settle well with Katherine, especially when she was so adamant on the fact that this woman would come after her family if she breathed a word about what happened to his brother and what was responsible.

The police believe that Katherine had suffered minor injuries to her memory because she says she can’t really remember what happened that night and her head was still fuzzy. All three of us know that that is a cover up for her true initiative and that she wouldn’t ever disclose information to help the case if it meant her loved ones getting hurt. She already blames herself for Will’s death; imagine what the guilt would do to her if they rest of her family was hurt in the crossfire. The guilt would consume her and I’d rather make the pain easier than harder, which is why I pushed my subconscious mind away and focused on helping Katie in any way I could, even if that did mean keeping my mouth shut.

I watch Brad as he contemplates the same thing, but he seems to come to my judgement as well as he sits beside Katherine once more and takes her hand in his. “So, what do we do now?” I ask no one I particular.

“Anything,” Katie replies. “Anything at all.”