I'm Not Dead

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This chapter is dedicated to @VeraAnneWolf for her incredible support and for successfully making me fall in love with the royalty genre again! 

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I don't know how we got off the streets, but I remember walking them with the soldiers.

I could hear the sound of their guns and bombs and the death around us.

My surroundings came to me in flashes.

Red, yellow, more red, fearful eyes of every color, men, women, children.

None of it made sense, yet all of it was clear.

Reality didn't render me conscious though until we stepped inside the office building the soldiers were using to shelter the civilians they plucked out of the gunfire. Families, college kids, teenagers, businessmen, people of every kind, and class were slumped on the floor in no better position than us. 

Bloody, bruised, dirty, crying, there wasn't a single person in here who was having a good night. You could still hear the gunfire and explosions outside, but the sniffles and sobs of the people in the walls muffled the sounds. At every door, two or more heavily armed soldiers stood, prepared to fight back anything that tried to make an unwelcome entrance. We may not be at the hospital yet, but for now we were safe.

Once inside, the female soldier escorting me brought me into one of the bottom floor offices. "Here we go, you should be safe in here," she said, slipping my arm off her camouflaged shoulders, before pulling a notebook from her pocket. "What's your name and age son? Do you know the kids you were with?"

Sitting down in the desk chair, I rubbed my sore eyes. My tears stopped. I wanted to keep crying, I wanted to empty all the putrid distress inside of me, but as quickly as it had spiraled out of control, my epicenter of nerves made me numb. My brain couldn't process what almost happened, so it didn't bother trying. "Rocco Maneli, I'm twenty-three. The kids with me are my younger siblings."

Clicking open a pen, the female soldier quickly jotted it down. "Why were you downtown tonight?"

My eyes flickered over to the other soldiers as they escorted my siblings inside the room. The man carrying Alice had put her down and gave her a bottle of water as he talked to her softly. I could tell he was kind. "Our mother, Nora Maneli, called us from her job at Morton Hospital. She told us to meet her there, said she couldn't tell us why," I looked back at the female soldier. "She said we had to get out of here before it was too late."

Nodding, she then looked up at me with soot-covered eyes. "I'm Linda," I couldn't see her face because of the mask, but I could tell by the rising apples of her cheeks Linda was smiling at me. "It's going to be okay Rocco, I'm going to keep you and your siblings safe," she rested a gloved hand over my bare one. "I have men stationed at Morton, I'll see if I can get ahold of your mother," she decided, giving my hand a light squeeze. "If she's still there, I'll get you six to her." She then pulled away and stepped outside the room as I heard her walkie crackle.

As soon as she left, Alice started walking towards me but El stepped between us, her unshed tears finally leaving tracks down her grimy face. "You—"

Before she could finish, I quickly rose to my feet and shushed her. "Not now El, we can't talk about this right now."

Instead of complying, she clenched her trembling fist and weakly hit me in the chest. "You gave up, the second things got rough, you gave up," she wheezed, using her hand to block Alice from coming over to me. "Stay away from her, or so help me, Rocco," she then turned her back to me as she redirected Alice towards the opposite side of the office.