Perfection (Red Wrists 1 REWRITTEN EDITION)

Part Nineteen

Pax, Harper, and I got back in the golf cart in silence, probably allowing me to process the information I was given. There wasn't much to say. Pax drove this time, turning on the radio to throw some sound other than the tires on asphalt. The music was calming, peaceful, unlike anything you'd normally hear on the radio.

Not much of interest happened on the way to school. Pax and Harper let me sit in silence, watching the woods roll by as I kept thinking back to what I saw in that graveyard. Tim had been visiting my parents graves. From the sound of it, since he'd met me. How did he even know who my parents were?

Pax interupted the silence as we pulled up to the school, leaning over the front seat to look back at me as he started, "You okay, Em?" I nodded, getting out of my seat and heading towards the building. Harper and Pax were hot on my trail, though not many students were in the schoolyard yet. I wasn't even sure the doors were open yet.

Harper took the lead, dragging Pax by the hand through a crowd of students to get a spot resting against the wall. I followed them this time, taking a seat next to the two of them. They were looking through a book resting on Pax's lap. I vaguely recognized a couple law terms within the book, but nothing much past that. "Mystery book?" I asked, leaning over Harper to get a look into Pax's lap.

"Something like that," Harper said, nudging me away with a grin on his face. "Pax wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. It's a law book."

Pax got a sour expression on his face when he grumbled, "I'll have plenty of practice by the time his court case is over with," in reply.

I tilted my head to the side, narrowing my eyes. "Who's court case?"

When Harper opened his mouth to reply, Pax blurted out, "Classified. Sorry, Em."

With a shrug, I smiled. "Not my problem. So a lawyer, huh?" Pax nodded. "I'll be sure to keep you in mind for my next shoplifting phase," I joked, earning a half-hearted giggle from Harper.

I looked out among the students, smiling at the sight. All these people just gathered around before class started. Not a care in the world.

As I stared among the group of students, I saw Tim walking up along the path. He glanced my way for a moment, and time seemed to slow down. It was his calm emotionless eyes locked on mine for mere moments before his soft brown eyes grew wide. I watched as he mouthed my name, panic written on his face. His slow-motion pace quickened, and as I watched in confusion, I felt cold hard metal rest against my neck.

My already slowed perception of time slowed down even more as I felt panic of my own rise from deep within. A sting came across my neck. I tried backing away, but everything was moving so slow. I was moving so slow. And my back was already pressed solid against the wall behind me.

As the pain in my neck became too much to bear, I saw a hand from my side reach up and grasp the metal thing against my neck, yanking it away. Time sped up again as Pax stood up with the metal object in his hand, a hand and an arm attached to it. And then a body. In one swift motion Harper stood as well, jumping on top of the body with the metal thing in it's hand, pinning it down. Pax threw the metal thing away from the body. Not a body, a person.

A person was laying beneath Harper, pinned. The knife tossed far away from his grasp. Tim ran over to us, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me a bit as he questioned, "Emma-May, are you okay? Are you hurt?" I was too stunned to speak. Too stunned to move. His eyes moved down to my neck, a grumble rumbling through his throat.

"Somebody get security!" Pax yelled, raising his voice enough to get the attention of everyone in the schoolyard. "We have an armed attacker!"

I gupled in a bit of air, raising a shaky hand up to my throat. A warm, wet goo touched my fingertips, making my breath hitch in my throat. I brought my hand up to my face, seeing blood on my fingers. It ran down the length of my fingers, pooling in my palm for moments before running down the length of my arm. I saw Tim's lips moving. He was trying to talk to me, I could tell he was talking to me.

My ears were swarmed with a shrill shrieking sound as my breath quickened. I couldn't take my eyes off my hand. Off the blood-

My heart was pounding in my ears. My vision was swarmed by tears as I stared at the blood on my hands. I slowly lowered my hands, looking past them. At the mutilated bodies at my feet. "Mom?" I whispered, getting on my hands and knees grasping her body by the shoulder as I shook with all the strength I had. "Mommy, wake up." I cried, the tears getting worse.  Beyond my mother's body was my father's. 

Before I could reach any further, I heard a sobbing voice to my side. "I didn't do it," the kid whispered. I recognized the puppet sitting at the edge of the room. Or I did, back then. Me in the present couldn't, or at the very least didn't want to, recognize the child. I knew him. I know I did. And the sirens. Outside of the house came a shrill, ear-piercing shriek of one, two, maybe five police cars or ambulances.

I locked my eyes onto the child, shaking violently. "What happened?" I sobbed, clutching my mother's body in fear. "What the heck happened?!"

The child curled himself into a ball, sobbing as loudly as me. "Emma I promise it wasn't me!" 

A small bit of anger rose in my chest as my memories collided with what I wanted now. "Then who was it?!?" I screamed at the boy, my hands shaking with the anger and sadness coursing through me.

The boy looked up at me, tears in his dark brown eyes as he blinked for a couple moments. Silence passed for seconds on end before he slowly lifted his eyes to the camera in the corner of the room.

The camera.

"The camera!" I said, snapping back into reality. I grasped Tim's hands in mine, shaking them fervently as I repeated, "The cameras, Tim!"

He looked very confused at this, but both him and Harper watched me as I continued, "I know how to figure out who killed my parents!"

Harper's eyes both looked confused and excited as he asked, "What? How?"

I stood up, catching sight of the security guards taking my attacker away as I breathed out, "The security cameras! My house had hidden security cameras all over the house!"

The smile had been growing on Tim's face faltered before he said, "Emma don't you think the cops would have taken something like the security footage into account?"

I ignored him, spinning around a bit and pulling my phone from my pocket. I scrolled through my contacts, scrolling past Mike and Kara's numbers. I grimaced when I saw them, but otherwise ignored them. My fingers kepts scrolling down until I came to a contact labeled "Xavier, Detec.". I frantically hit call, and put the phone up to my ear.

"Detective Xavier speaking, may I ask who's calling?" came the voice on the other end.

"Detective?" I started. "It's me, Emma-May Linn? i might have some new leads on my parent's murder case."