You Better Bring an Umbrella, Vol. 2

Chapter 26: Öga för Öga

            Exhaustion tugged vigorously at my eyelids, begging for just a second of sleep, but every time they dared to fall shut, the image of Elliott's mutilated, violated, drained corpse appeared in the darkness, lingering close like a lost child attempting to find a sense of safety. The night had passed without a trace of an answer, leaving us with no better idea of who came for Elliott than when we got home. Diego and Luther managed to fall asleep somehow, though I heard the former mumbling and tossing in his sleep on a few occasions. With no one to talk to, I'd retired into the room that had formerly belonged to Elliott and just laid down on the bed. For a moment, my hand drifted over to the other side, feeling the cool material against the pads of my fingers. I swore I could still feel each dip and curve in the places where Lila had slept not long ago.

I needed her right about now.

Footsteps outside my door compelled me outside, though I still wanted nothing to do with that body. Hesitantly, I wrapped my fingers around the handle and tugged, causing artificial light to come flooding in. My brothers stood by Elliott's body, removing the various weapons and tools stabbed deep into it. Immediately, I turned my head away, the small appetite I'd worked up melting away again.

"Mina?" I shook my head, refusing Diego's disguised offer to turn around. "He's covered back up."

I knew it was just underneath a sheet, but somehow, that made me feel a little better, so I finally turned on my heel and headed back over toward my brothers. Diego wiped one of his knives, which had been plunged into Elliott's chest, against his shirt before setting it into the last empty place in his holster and setting an arm against my shoulder. I reached up and squeezed his hand, still in a bit of a daze.

"I can't believe Elliott's dead," I whispered as hot tears started to fight their way up.

"He was a good guy," Diego affirmed. "Deserved better than this."

"Yeah," Luther agreed.

The thoughts of Elliott's body being beneath the sheet in front of me caused a prickling sensation to run over my skin. Instinctually, I pulled away and crossed my arms, rubbing my hands against my elbows.

"Elliott must've been getting too close to the truth," Diego began to mutter, crossing the room and staring down at the bloody words written on the tile below us. "It smells like the feds." Despite my state, I still rolled my eyes and glared at my brother, ready to chew him out.

"What? Are you out of your mind?" Luther scoffed, beating me to the punch.

"Diego, if this was the federal government, they would take him somewhere and question him, they wouldn't..." I flicked my gaze back to the sheet momentarily, unwilling to remember what was beneath. "...do that. No, this is the work of a psychopath."

My shoulders hunched a little further as my stomach began to turn as the realization hit me that my brother was out there doing this exact same thing. I hadn't seen him kill someone in the way the Commission had taught him to, but given how ruthless and cold-blooded he made the organization and its leader sound, I doubted he was just going in there and slipping a little poison in their food or some shit.

"'Oga Foroga,'" Diego read out loud, like we hadn't already committed it to memory. "That a name?"

Taking care not to disturb Elliott's corpse, I made my way over to Diego's side and leaned over. The breaks in each word didn't make it seem like it was some sort of name, not to mention Diego didn't exactly have a track record for hitting the nail on the head when it came to deciphering.