With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Small spotlight-like lights on the sides of the ceiling turned on all of a sudden, and the group was made aware of people entering the room through the sound of the door opening.

They all looked up to see Amrie, Charles and Greg entering the room, all of them with seriousness on their faces. Amrie looked grim, her knuckles white in her too tight fist, while Charles just looked defeated.

Greg looked devastated, and it was all Joshua could do to stop himself from standing up and just embracing the man he swore to himself he would protect no matter what. After all, when Joshua promised to protect Greg, he promised to do it despite and against anything.

Amrie sat at the head of the table, with Charles sitting beside Samuel and Greg sitting beside Joshua. Greg had his head bowed down, as if the weight on his shoulders was too heavy to carry with his usual perfect posture, and Joshua took Greg’s hand from the armrest on the chair, holding it in his and rubbing the back of it with his thumb. Greg looked up, his green eyes without their usual twinkle, and smiled sadly.

Amrie put her hands on the wooden table, revealing brown folders they didn’t notice before. One by one, the folders were thrown their way, each one landing right in front of them.

Joshua took his folder with one hand, opening it to find a picture of Eena’s crime scene. He flipped through the pages, feeling his jaw drop with each flick of the finger. The second page had a picture of Reini from some convenience store, and the third page had a thinly-veiled threat within a challenge.

Joshua promptly looked up, looking at Samuel’s white-knuckled grip on the brown folder. He exhaled, feeling sorry for his friend.

Samuel looked up, sensing someone’s eyes on him, and saw Joshua giving him a silent question. Are you okay?

Samuel sighed and shook his head. He closed the folder, unable to stomach the thought of danger coming to Reini once more. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he struggled to breathe normally. It felt like the walls were closing in on him, like he was about to be trapped.

Whatever he had with Reini all seemed so pointless in the face of the possibility of him not ever seeing her alive again. He should have at least made everything better, talked to her, even. It wasn’t fair for him to expect anything much of her because he knew that before him, all Reini had was her job and her friends. She didn’t actively choose to hurt him. She actively chose to protect him.

Damn fate for making him realize this now, when his moment of clarity was being fazed once more by fear.

In all honesty, the two years he had spent without her, with the constant thought that he was the reason why she was dead, was the worst period of his life. Not a day passed by when Samuel didn’t think of just ending it all, of just putting a stop the mundanity of his life. Not a day passed when Samuel looked in the mirror and hated what he saw.

Two years of depression, and to find out that it was all for nothing had been painful as hell. All of his self-loathing, his constant what-ifs…nothing.

The months he spent at the agency were filled with confusion and anger. Not a day passed by when he didn’t want to hurt Reini, yet kiss her at the same time. He spent months with anger as his constant companion, the only thing keeping him going. A large part of him just wanted revenge, wanted to hurt Reini the way she hurt him, and he did so by ignoring her presence, by giving out cutthroat remarks with the purpose of cutting her as deep as she cut him.

And when he found out that Reini spent that night with Andrew, Samuel just honestly lost it.

He kissed Tanya with the hope of crushing Reini the way she had crushed him. The relationship that had a lot of potential had become a ruthless competition of who hurt who more.