Never Look Back: A New Dawn

Xavier? - 4

        A deep thud rattled me from a midday nap. I leapt out of my skin, nearly breathless, and walked my way lethargically to the origin of the noise. I traveled through the narrow hallway and into the main, open area of the apartment. The living room was vacant, but just beyond it was the white, freshly painted front door stained with a smear of red. I quickly ran to the coffee table and reached underneath it, pulling out a fully loaded 9mm and cocking it.

        I walked lightly on the wooden floors, trying to maneuver my way around any creaks and bumps. From the living room, I was able to hear a faint groan that led me into Logan’s bedroom. The door wasn’t fully shut and the knob was painted the same color as the front door. I pushed myself inside while easing my way through the squeaky hinges. The light to his bathroom was on, and along the tiles I could see a tall shadow shifting. I slowly crept further into the room while trying to keep my hands steady and my breathing silent. I was close to crossing the line between the wooden floors and the cold tile, and in a quick step I immersed myself into the bathroom and pointed my weapon at the figure who created the shadow, but my arms lowered once the figure spun around.

        “Logan!” I shouted.

        My brother looked at me with the eyes of a dead man. He was nearly drenched in blood, and as he pulled up his shirt, he revealed to me two bullet wounds. One grazed him at the waist and the other thankfully went clean through his shoulder. However, the blood saturated his cotton, gray shirt and dripped onto the floor. His face was flushed of color and he wobbled on his own two feet, almost falling onto me at one point, but I caught him.

        “Logan, what happened?” I asked frantically while tossing the gun aside and sitting him down on the lid of the toilet.

        “I… I-I don’t know. I was at the… the college and all the guys, they-they didn’t make it… It all happened so fast I-I can’t remember… Just fix me.”

        I started rummaging through the cabinets and found a first aid kit buried under his slew of Penthouse magazines and a box of condoms.

        “You’re really gross, you know that?” I snapped while pulling out alcohol and gauze.

        “Nikki, not now! Just stop the bleeding and you can bitch later,” he snapped while grasping onto his waist.        

        With my trembling hands I disinfected the wounds while he grunted at the sting that came with it, and then spent a good chunk of time applying pressure with gauze that eventually became soaked with his blood and had to be changed. Thankfully, the bleeding didn’t last much longer after I came to his aid, but he looked like hell. His face was cut up and bruised, his body was caked in blood and dirt, and his clothes were torn up. Even when I got him all patched up, he still looked at me with a sickly pale complexion.

        “Who would’ve done this?” I asked while cleaning off the blood that stained my hands.

        “You know who… It’s Seth and his crew. They know we’re onto him.”

        “How? We’ve been so careful, and we’ve hardly gotten anywhere with what we know, how could he know?”

        “I don’t know,” he replied.

        “What if it’s not Seth,” I suggested. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me and propped his slouched frame up to give our eyes more direct contact.

        “Why do you think that?”

        “Seth just moved into power, he wouldn’t let his first move be attacking us! He wouldn’t even know who we are, not like how Liam did when you worked for him. As far as he knows, we’re practically strangers, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t someone who works for him.”