Master of the Lights

Chapter Six Part Two

  He can't believe what he's hearing.  Asa looks up at me, hating the fact that he has to be the one to tell me.  He knows I will be devastated.

  "I'm so sorry, Asa,"  Anya says to him.  She sounds close to tears.  "We just got the word from one of the guys working up at the docks on Harper Island.  It's the most terrible thing ever.  I can't even imagine that happening to me, or how you feel."

  He hangs up without saying anything more than "Hello".  Mostly he is shocked.  Hardly even sad, just shocked.  He wasn't close to them.  They hated Asa, treated him like crap when nobody was looking, and Asa hated them in return.  But they provided food and shelter, which was more than his parents did for him.  And they took good care of his little sisters.  I don't want to tell her.  I can't, he thinks.

  Slowly, he rises from the floor and sits beside Dme on the bed, enveloping me in his strong arms.  I try to pull away but he won't let me.

  "What?"  I say.  Asa can feel the same thick, unknowing despair that fills my voice.  "Asa tell me!  Who was that?"

  "It was Anya,"  He says softly.

  I try to push Asa backwards again, though his hands cradle my back and neck.  "I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you.  I wish it weren't true."  He whispers in my ear the same thing Anya told him.

  I looks at Asa for a moment, horrified, then collapse, sobbing into his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry,"  He murmurs over and over, because he can't think of anything else.  Nothing Asa says can make this situation better and that hits him harder than what he had to tell me.  We sit there for what seems like forever; him stroking my hair and rocking me, while I cry.

  After awhile, I fall asleep, my face streaked with drying tears and eyeliner.  Asa drapes the covers over me and leaves, closing the door as quietly as possible then sinks down to sit against the wall.

  Asa sighs.  I can't believe it.  Why did this have to happen?  He thinks.

  Why did Dekka's parents have to die?