Nicole

Epilogue

Nicole exhaled and her breath came out in a white puff. She was still shaking although it was worse a while ago. Nicole and her family were walking out of the graveyard where they’d just attended Nathan’s funeral. The battle was still a blur to her but she was okay with that. She didn’t want clear pictures of the blood and chaos printed into her mind like the image of Nathan’s death.

She remembered bursting into tears after the battle as Axel dropped to the ground beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. He’d let her soak his jacket with tears while Isabelle leaned onto Nicole, her head on her shoulder. She didn’t know for how long they’d stayed like that but by the time they’d gone out, the sun was rising. They’d been in the warehouse all night.

Christopher was still fazed by the recent revelations. He hadn’t even had time to mourn Nathan properly. As they stepped onto the sidewalk, Nicole’s eyes fell on a familiar car. She squinted, trying to remember where she had seen it before. Before she could figure it out though, the car slowed to a stop and the driver rolled down the window. That was when it hit her.

It was Xander, the only person who was there to attend her mother’s funeral besides her. He seemed to have recognized her. Nicole speed-walked toward the car, her boots crushing the hard snow beneath her.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you around in a while,” Xander said.

“Yeah, I… I wasn’t really around,” Nicole answered. Though she hadn’t seen him after her mother’s funeral, Nicole had grown to like Xander and his family. She felt as if she could see it in his and his wife’s eyes and through their smiles that they had suffered so much but survived.

He jerked his chin to the graveyard, “Visiting?”

Nicole nodded, “And burying.” She added. His expression softened.

“I’m so sorry. It must be hard,” Xander said. Something in his eyes told Nicole that he understood her pain, that he’d felt the amount of pain himself.

“Watching your fourteen-year-old brother die a fortnight after your mother? Yeah, it is,” Nicole said and Xander seemed lost in thought.

“If you ever need anything, Nicole, you can ask me, alright? I’m not saying it out of courtesy. I mean it. I’ve been through loss at a young age, like you, and it sucks especially when there’s no one by your side. No one you can trust because sometimes, no matter how well you think you know people, they turn out to be an entirely different personality.” There was softness in his voice and – it felt to Nicole – the faded pain of scars. She nodded, thinking of the way her father would be feeling after finding out that the reason behind the ruin of his family was his own brother.

She looked over to her family who was waiting for her. “I gotta run.” She bid goodbye to Xander and ran back to her family.

Axel grinned as she approached him, “You seem to know a lot of adults around here.”

“He was the only other person who attended Mom’s funeral,” she answered. His grin softened into a smile.

“We should crash at Nicole’s place for the night. When’s our flight back to California?” Isabelle asked, turning to their father who looked up.

“Tomorrow morning,” Christopher answered.

The walk back home was silent. Nicole’s arms were crossed over her chest. She wasn’t sure whether she was cold or it was the recent events that wouldn’t allow her to get warm.

She remembered crying and crying into Axel’s jacket while her father kept telling the three of them that they had to get to the hospital, that they were wounded terribly. It was only in the hospital that Nicole finally felt the pain of all the wounds she had gotten during the battle. It had been too much, for it felt like all the pain just collapsed on her at once. She hadn’t been able to bear it. She remembered screaming and crying for Nathan before she passed out.