Pink Walls

Day Three [Part VI]✓

"I'm your bodyguard. It's my job."

"You look terrible."

I didn't look at Daniel.

My gaze was fixed on my hands and fingers; my skin red with blood—my blood, her blood. . . our blood.

The color stained my nails, cuticles and the creases of my palms. There was some on my face, my neck. . . My shirt was probably soaked to but since it was black, I couldn't see it.

I could feel it though, with every breath I took, glueing the soft cotton to my bruises.

It was stuck to me and I wanted it gone.

I didn't want any of it on me. I wanted to burn the shirt, the jacket, my jeans and everything in between. I wanted the memory of what happened today to be incinerated then seared out of my mind.

But even if I burned the ashes till they turned to nothing, I wouldn't be able to change the fact that I still had blood on my hands.

A bullet might have done Amelia in, in the end, but she would have died anyway. Even if I had managed to knock her out, she would have died from blood loss long before she could arrive at the nearest hospital.

The moment we started fighting, it was set in stone that one of us would die, and it wasn't going to be me. It couldn't have been me.

You aren't the reason she died, I tried to tell myself, but the guilt just wouldn't go away. A part of me just didn't want to let go.

There was little difference between killing someone and being the direct cause of their death, and the distinction blurred itself too often for me to just put it behind me.

The moment I stopped feeling guilt, was the moment I would have no problem with killing. And I couldn't let it get to that.

If this ache in my heart was necessary to keep my conscience alive, I was okay living with it for the rest of my life.

I got to my feet, and was immediately reminded of the throbbing pain beneath my temple, the stitch in my side and the cuts on my back. I blinked back the dizziness and scanned the gravel for the car keys.

I couldn't remember what I had done with them but I knew that they had to be on the ground somewhere.

After some searching, I found them a couple steps away, in front of the tire of the car I had been thrown against, and scooped it from underneath layers of shattered car window.

Then I turned to Daniel, or at least where I knew Daniel would be.

He was in the middle of a six man formation, safe and out of sight.

The men were in the same blue and white uniform worn by most of the hotel staff but with the addition of assault rifles strapped across their chests.

Their serious gazes comforted me in a way. Immediately, I was sure that they were the type to do their all for a job and I knew that Daniel had been well taken care of in my absence.

The moment I walked to the car and unlocked it, the security detail shuffled forward with him in tow, barely any gaps between their bodies.

I glanced behind me, in direction south of the hotel, my body screaming in pain and my mind blissfully numb.

I wasn't going to give that sniper the chance to kill Daniel.

I held open the passenger-side door and one of the men broke formation to stand beside me, shielding Daniel completely as he got into the car.