Unmarked

Nineteen

I willed the excruciating pain away as I shoved open my door. 

"Jackson," I gasped as we tumbled into my apartment together, "Jackson what happened?" 

He groaned and stumbled forward, collapsing backwards onto my couch. His face was pale, deeply pale. I feared the worst. 

"I'm going to call 888," I said reaching over Jackson to where my phone was on the table behind the couch. He grabbed my wrist tightly. Tighter than I had expected from a man bleeding out. 

"No," he said softly, "It's too late." Tears were in his eyes. Remembering what little first aid I did know, I grabbed a blanket and began to apply pressure on his stomach and chest where his wounds were. I was crying too, but I tried to push it back thinking if I was strong he would be too. 

"I have to call. I-its okay, we're gonna get you all fixed up." I promised him, but really, I think I was trying to reassure myself. 

If Jackson died, that meant Angelica died. My best friends. My only friends. 

Jackson looked at me sadly, his eyebrows furrowed in pain as he let out a grunt with the new force of pressure I was using to stop the bleeding. That moment, us looking at each other, reminded me of my life before I'd met Adrian. My cruel father, my eccentric mother, my sweet little brother, my friends. Maybe I hadn't had a perfect life but at least I'd been loved. 

"There's no use." He sighed, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. 

"Jackson plea-" 

"Angelica's dead. Your parents too." 

My heart dropped. "Wh-What?" Tears blurred my vision and I unintentionally pressed harder on Jackson's wound causing him to yelp. 

Angelica, dead?

My parents, dead? 

"Someone lit your apartment building on fire, st-started it in your room." His voice quivered, "your parents were there. Angelica went over to see if she could find a diary that might say where you were. I-I," he sobbed. I'd never seen anyone so broken. Tears fully blurred my vision. "They exploded, Jade, they're gone.." 

"No! N-NO!" I stood up. Backed away from Jackson. I tripped over the coffee table and fell. "No," I cried. I couldn't see, my vision was too blurry. My heart broke.  I felt like I was going to be sick. My entire life, gone. My best friends, gone. 

"M-My brother? Did he.." I couldn't say it. My brother. He couldn't be gone too. no. 

"He wasn't home..." Jackson's voice faded. There was a moment of relief for my brother but a worry for Jackson soon replaced it. I got up from the floor and scrambled back to him. 

"No! Jackson, c'mon stay awake! You have to tell me, who did this to you? Who?" I was hysteric. In a matter of minutes, almost everyone important to me was dead. 

A little smile creeped its way onto his pale lips. "Fate," He whispered. 

There's a light in everyone's eyes, always shimmering. It projects our emotions and our feelings. its the true evidence of a life lived. I'd never seen a light dissipate before. But that night, as I desperately held Jackson's hand, selfishly praying that he would live without Angelica, I watched the light in his eyes disappear. And with it, my will to live. 

---

I'd memorized the number on the wanted poster with my face on it. The hotline number that would reconnect me with my mate. So many times I'd psyched myself out of calling the number, telling the guards where I was and getting the pain to stop. Those had been my moments of weakness, of loneliness.