Arranged

Realization

When I wake up, its morning. I'm lying in an empty bed, and my door is closed. Why aren't I dead? I could've sworn I pulled that trigger.

I get up and I go to the door, trying to open it, and it's locked from the outside. I start to wiggle the doorknob and it suddenly unlocks and opens. I look up, and Z's standing in front of me, a frown on his face. I look away, not wanting to look back at him.

"Are you..." he hesitates to finish his sentence and then shakes it away, sighing.

"Why's my door locked?" I say, plainly.

"We broke the door down and stopped you before you could pull the trigger, but before we could get you out of the room, you were putting up a fight, trying to get back to your gun. You'd drank a whole bottle of whiskey and you were clearly and obviously drunk." he explains, a frown still stretched across his face. I try to walk out of the room and he steps in front of me. "Daxine made me promise not to let you out until you swore you wouldn't try that again."

If I tell him I won't he wouldn't know if I was lying. But they've probably taken billions of measures to prevent me from attempting again, so the use of lying is irrelevant.

"Fine." I say.

"Swear, Vixen. Don't lie to me." he says, giving me a desperate glare.

"I swear." I say.

He hesitates at first and then he moves out of the way and lets me go. I look across the hall at my office door and there's broken wood everywhere and the door's broken in half. I can see the bottle of whiskey knocked over and my gun sitting on the floor. I sigh and I go downstairs. When I arrive downstairs, there's no breakfast on. It's completely quiet. So quiet you could hear a pen drop. But Mom, Dad, Kayno, and Mark are sitting in the living room, waiting on me, I guess.

Mom gets up and hugs me, sniffling. I don't hug her back, I just stand there looking at everyone, then my eyes fall on Leo. His face is bruised up, swollen, black, and purple as he looks up at me, no expression on his face. When she pulls away, I turn around and go back upstairs to my room. I need to visit her family. They must be just as heartbroken as I am. I put a black hoodie and a black beanie on and I go downstairs, my keys in hand as I open the door and head to the car.

"Where are you going?" Mom asks.

"To visit her family. It's the least I can do." I say, emotionless.

I walk to my car and I get in and take off to her parents' house. On the way there, I see a part of the road closed off, and a part of the metal bar separating the road from the edge of a cliff is broken through, workers trying to retrieve something.

That must be where it happened.

I look away, trying not to cry again, and I focus on the road, reaching into the middle console to grab a cigarette. When I arrive at their house, I step out into the cold and I throw the cigarette I'd been smoking onto the ground as I walk over to the door and I knock on it, waiting to come inside.

When it opens, Davina opens the door and instantly starts to cry as she pulls me into a hug. I don't know what to do, so I wrap an arm around her and I console her.

"I'm sorry that this happened. It shouldn't have been her." I say.

"Kyla didn't deserve any of this." she says, hyperventilating.

Even hearing her name hurts. It's why I try not to say it often. I walk in and her brothers greet me, giving me a hug and a hand shake. Sniffling, Davina speaks.

"Please, sit down. Make yourself comfortable." she says, trying to be nice.

"Mrs. Augestine, you don't have to do all this." I say.

"No, its fine." she says back.

I hesitantly sit down and Davina gets me a hot cup of coffee and she sits down with me, Mason, and Jaxon. "Have you seen her? I mean after..." she asks, not wanting to finish her question.

"No. I'd figured we'd all get a call and go see her together, but I never heard from anyone." I say, sipping my coffee and sitting it on a coaster on the table.

"We got a call but they told us that we couldn't see her because they were doing an autopsy to figure out the cause of death." Jaxon says.

Wait... What?

"Hold on, what did you say?" I ask him.

"They said they were figuring out the cause of death through an autopsy because they didn't have any evidence as to how she'd died, which is why they denied visitation." he explains again.

"Something's not right." I say.

"What?" Mason asks.

"They told me the cause of death was a car accident. That someone hit her off the road, that-that she flipped multiple times and landed on a cliff, so there's no reason they should be doing an autopsy unless there's something more going on here." I say, trying to connect the dots. "Wait a minute..." I say, an idea sparking in my mind.

"What is it?" Davina asks.

"The car I let her drive to school that day has a dashcam. I can get a friend to access it and we might be able to figure out who did it. That means that there's hope for her. She might not be dead." I say, my heart lifting just a bit. "But let's not get in over our heads. Would you guys like to come with me back home?"

"Uhm, yes. Yeah, we're coming." Davina says, grabbing her keys.

I get in my car and I speed to the house. When I get there, I call out to Z. "Z! Get down here!" I yell. He comes down and looks puzzled when he sees the family with me.

"Who are these guys?" he asks.

"Kyla's family. I need to see if you can access the dash cam inside her car. I think I know how to find her."

"Vixen, this is just a part of grief. It's alri-"

"The hospital called me and said she died in a car accident. When they called Davina, her mother, they said the cause of death was unknown, and that they were gonna perform an autopsy on her to find out, then they told her that they couldn't see her because of it. If I knew better, I'd think someone was up to something. And I'd suspect that my wife and unborn child were in trouble." I say, giving him a serious glare. "Does that sound like grief to you?"

He looks at me with regret on his face and he nods.

"Okay. I'll pull it up. I just need a-"

I point him to my office and he looks up the stairs and goes up. He types in a bunch of computer bullshit before a video pops up. The date on the top dates back to just yesterday at 4:40 P.M. The video shows a regular drive, me and her talk on the phone and she looks over and throws her phone in the passenger seat. Then that's when it happened. The car flipped a total of four times, then it lands and it's quiet. I can't hear anything but her cries and whimpers before she faints.

"Is that all?" I ask.

"No. It still has this little segment left." Zeno says, fast forwarding it a little bit.

I see the car door open as Kyla lies there, and a man climbs in and grabs her. I managed to catch a glimpse of his face before the video ends.

"Vixen, I know you just saw who I saw." Zeno says fearfully.

"Yeah. I saw him." I say, anger rising in my chest.

"That's not Malcom." he says.

"No, Scarface wouldn't be this messy."

"That can't be anybody but...." he says, hesitant to see the truth.

"The issue is between us. It's personal. He wants to see me suffer the same way he did." I say

"So its him?"

"Yeah. Its him. That's Blaire Kyiser. My best friend."