River's P.O.V.
We walked into my house and stopped at the sound of chaos.
We heard what sounded like Jordan freaking out and quickly made our way to the living-room where we came upon him lying on the floor bawling his eyes out as Sonny and AJ sat next to him.
"What's going on?" Asked Max as Cassidy walked up to us, her eyes full of tears as well.
"Looks like we're making another trip to Colorado." She said, her voice cracking.
I looked at her and saw she was on the verge of breaking.
She stared up at me, biting her lip as it trembled, trying so hard to hold herself together.
I pulled her towards me and wrapped my arms around her, holding her as she finally broke.
"Jordan's older sister called, Floyd beat Liliana..."
"Is she okay?"
She raised her head up long enough for me to find the answer in her heartbroken eyes.
.......................................
I went out to the balcony and sat in the chair next to him.
It wasn't long before he broke the silence between us.
"She called me last night but I was too busy partying to answer... Then she called this morning but I was hungover and didn't fell like talking..."
"Don't beat yourself up over that."
"But if I just would've taken the fucking time to answer... All I had to do was answer..."
"Even if you had answered there's no telling if this wouldn't have happened."
"I just-..... How do you do it?"
"How do I do what?"
"Deal with losing someone that close to you?"
"I've lost my brother, my ex wife, my daughter, Reese, my mom, and people I became close to during the darkest point of my life back in Blairwood. I deal with it by bottling up all of the anger and hatred I have within me. And doing that has affected me in the worst way possible. You can't deal with something like this which took me forever to realize because if you do you'll turn into the kind of person I am. You just have to accept that it happened. You can't blame yourself and you can't constantly ask 'what if'.... I learned that the hard way."
"Yea but I'm not as strong as you. I break a lot easier than you do."
"Jordan you're way stronger than I am. You can withstand a lot more than I can emotionally. You've changed so much over the years I've known you. When I first met you I used to deliberately try to piss you off just because I wanted a fight and I knew you'd snap in no time. But now you're completely different. You actually think about the consequences before you jump to violence. And I honestly think of you as a younger brother now. Weakness isn't determined by who breaks the easiest. Its determined by who breaks the worst. Therefore you're stronger than I am. You break and you rebound after a bit of rationality hits. I break and I go one a rampage and hurt people then I try to call it quits on myself because I dont see rationality and I'm completely worn out emotionally. Its gotten to the point where I'm not sure just how much more I can take. Yet I somehow manage to always rebound and if I can do it then so can you. All you have to do is remember that you did your job as Liliana's big brother. You loved her. You looked after her. Protected her. You did what you were supposed to do and that's all that matters. Everything else was out of your hands."
I saw Cassidy standing in the doorway with a subtle smile.
"Why dont you go check on your daughter." I said to Jordan. "You gave her a scare back there."
He nodded his head then got up and hugged Cassidy before going back inside.
Cass sat in the chair that he was previously sitting in and grabbed my hand as I stared up at the sky.
"He looks up to you and Max." She said. "He takes everything you two tell him to heart and he listens."
"I just told him the truth. Not sure if that was enough though."
"What makes you say that?"
"He's going through something I've never been through. His own dad took his sister's life... Thats just- unfathomable to me. How do you kill your own kid? I'd never be able to bring myself to do something like that. I've never even done so much as hit any of my kids."
"Wish I had an answer for that..." She stated.
...................................................
Cassidy's P.O.V.
It was close to 4 am and I still hadn't gotten any sleep.
My thoughts were running wild trying to process the terrible news we'd gotten just hours earlier.
Growing up with Jordan pretty much automatically made Liliana feel like a sister to me.
River was sleeping so I couldn't vent to him. At that moment though all I wanted was to be comforted. But I didn't wanna wake him.
So I did what I've always done whenever he was sleep yet I needed his comfort, I simply scooted closer to him and laid my head on his chest as he subconsciously pulled me up against him.
Being held by him always heightened my hopes of everything turning out to be okay in the end.
Maybe one day we wont have to live in fear of losing eachother...
We wont have to live in fear of losing anyone else...
We'll stay close to our group of friends who have become more like our brothers and sisters...
Our kids and their kids will grow up together and be as close and as protective of eachother as we are....
We'll watch all of the kids graduate, go on to college, get married....
We'll be there when Benji gets awarded the Nobel Peace Prize like he always talks about...
And when Kaiser becomes a famous soccer player like he insists on doing....
River and I will grow old together and I'll be stuck listening to his arrogance until the day I die...
Maybe everything will be okay.
Unfortunately my wishful thinking was cut off by a panicked yell.
I waited to see if maybe I was just tripping until I heard it again followed by what sounded like some sort of struggle.
"River." I said as I quickly shook him. "River wake up."
I hopped out of bed as soon as he opened his eyes.
"Its Kaiser." I said.
Kaiser yelled again and River jumped out of bed and hurried towards Kai's room as I followed him.
As soon as we got into his room we saw him laying on the floor about 6 feet from his bed, sweating bullets, kicking and screaming, crying his eyes out, having a full on panic attack.
River quickly knelt down and grabbed Kaiser as Maracel, Logan and Jenna ran into the room with baseball bats.
"Kai- Kaiser calm down..." Said River, holding him as he continued to freak out.
"He's still asleep..." I remarked, noticing he still had his eyes closed.
"NOOO!" He screamed. " PLEASE!!! NOOO!!!"
"Kaiser..."
"NO!" He continued on, kicking and trying to break away from River. "STOP!!!!"
"KAISER!" River finally yelled causing Kaiser's eyes to shoot open. He froze for a few seconds attempting to catch his breath as he stared at River. Then he broke down crying.
"You're okay buddy." Said River as he held him. "You're okay..."
"I had a dream last night..." He said through the tears. "I saw Uncle Jordan's sister die..."
River and I looked at eachother in disbelief.
"I didn't say anything..." Kaiser began. "Because I didn't think it would really happen."
I was at a total loss for words.
"Get Cato on the phone." He said to me. "What happened in your dream just now?" He asked Kai.
Kaiser looked at him in complete fear as if he was terrified to answer, tears still streaming down his face one after another.
"Its alright, you can tell me." River assured him.
"I saw-" He paused and continued staring at River in fear then answered....
"I saw you die."