Minder: Secrets of Mind

Chapter 22

"What!" Amari shouts as Lance and Eve rush to get him off her father.

"Why did you tackle my dad," Eve asks; doing her best to hold back tears, she drops next to him, "Come on, dad. Come back to me. Wake up! Wake up! Wak...wake up, please."

Her begging and sobbing were something even Lance wasn't used to; Eve always tried to hold her emotions in and just approach things with the doors around her shut so no one could truly know. The last time Lance had seen her this open was the first month, or so they met, and for Amari, even he could attest to the fact that the one who laid the heaviest emotions out that didn't involve touch was him in their relationship. Despite the insanity of the situation, most of the workers couldn't help but feel for her.

Until they didn't, their sobbing stopped, and their bodies froze in their exact position when they went silent. Almost as if someone cut the switch off on their brains. The other three notice this while Eve continues to beg and cry over her father's body, trying her best to find a seam to yank the armor off to begin CPR or stop bleeding on one of his many wounds. As she searched around, she could see that some were stab wounds, some were bolt shot wounds, and some hits he had taken came from sheer blunt force.

"Oh God, dad. What have you been involved with?" Eve mumbles.

"Ummm, Eve?" Lance says, his hand looking for her shoulder but finding her head and awkwardly rubbing it.

Annoyed by Lance's interruption, she stands up and faces them, just as everyone seems to come back on. While she missed them being silent and her teary eyes made them blurry for a second, she wipes away her tears as best she could, just in time to catch everyone around them looking around in confusion as they regain their bearings as if they missed the last hour. Confused like the others, Eve looks around for answers, and remembering she knows Jayden, she opts to use him as a source for answers.

"Jayden! Hey, sorry didn't mean to scare you. Do you know what just happened?" She asks.

"Ugh, feels like someone just kicked me in the head...and how did I get up here? I was just heading back to the manager's office."

"Mate...you all came up here when your coworker over there screamed and her dad showed up...." Lance says before pointing toward Eve's father, but his body is gone.

Confused, the four of them all begin looking around for her father, but his body is completely gone. So is the blood he dragged across the floor from the other door. And the coworker Lance referred to was standing near the pharmacy with the security officer that had been tossed, talking as if nothing had just happened. Even the downed bathing suit setup was back up and organized as if two men of decent size hadn't just landed on it—one of them in some sort of heavy suit.

"What the fuck is going on, Amari?" Alison asks.

"Why did you tackle my dad?" Eve backs up with a tone of confusion and anger.

"Woah, okay! Calm down with the targeting here because you guys don't understand what happened to me before I got here. And your dad...or Dr. Walker...or whoever that was, was involved. Hell saved my life. But I wasn't thinking, I just remember him saving my life from these people in these weird ass swimsuits, and he told me to find you guys. And that we were in danger, so I come in, and I saw someone on you, and I just charged, alright?" Amari states.

"Wait, did you just say Dr. Walker? Cause Eve your dad sounded like him just then when he was talking. And saved you from people in swimsuits? Amari, are you sure you just didn't come across the swim team? They take midnight runs on campus in their outfits; not sure why but I hope you didn't just mess them up. Outside you guys, they are like the only club we got that pulls their weight." Lance questions.