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After.
The town’s chaos was one that she wanted to escape from. Reminders sat everywhere, candles, photographs… as Jinx walked down the side street she did her best to avoid the main roads, to tuck herself as far away as possible from the reminders and ghosts that now walked the streets. The fill of long and drawn faces, the people who wanted nothing more than for someone to listen to what they’d been through.
The last thing Jinx wanted to do was listen.
She hadn’t slept in days. She hadn’t eaten. She’d sat tucked in the corner of the apartment above the bar with the lights off, the music in her ears unable to cover the talking voices, the memory of the look on Wes’s face.
Motherfucker. She was doing it again.
Jinx’s chest constricted, breathing once again seeming as if every breath she took was coming in and out through a straw. Reaching up with both hands she covered her mouth and nose, trying to ground herself. Just the same way she always had, the way she’d calmed herself down after Jack had left. When she’d realized that she was completely alone with their son of a bitch father.
It wasn’t helping.
Instead of images passed in front of her. The last look in Wes’s eyes. He’d smiled at her. That stupid cheeky smile that she had grown so used to. He’d smiled at her while his hands plunged the blade straight into his own chest. The way the blood had pooled over that stupid white shirt, how it had colored the whole thing a burning red in seconds.
“Fuck”
Blue eyes popped open.
It didn’t matter if her eyes were open or shut, it didn’t matter if it was day or night. The images were the only thing she could see. The reminders of that night were colored so vibrantly in her mind’s eye that even as she opened her eyes she felt like everything around her was dull, colorless …broken.
Broken
That was exactly what was going on here, everything about Salem was broken and in disarray.
The gooseflesh on her arms had popped up and yet for once, she wasn’t sure if it was November chill or if it was the fact that every moment of the day she seemed to be reliving Halloween night over and over. They were both plausible.
