Instinct

Chapter 8 -- Thrree

Shawn had collapsed in the instance the bullet impacted the back of his head. The sudden gunshot surprised me at the anonymity of it, so much so that froze up and jumped inside my skin at the sudden sound of it. A red flower of blood rose out from the front of Shawn's head before his lifeless body gave out from the sudden, inactive, deadweight of his own body.

Everything washed over in a bone-chilling silence. Even the rain seemed to mute itself to let everyone take in the events that just took place. I stared at Shawn's dead body for what seemed like forever. And a wave of uncertainty began to wash over my mind...

Crimson screamed out and crawled towards her dead father. I gasped for air at the sudden blood-curdling cry of Crimson's that fractured the silence over everyone. The rain's sounds came back again and my pulsating heart hammered inside my head. The tips of my fingers thumped with blood flow at the numbing tingle that followed suit of it. Madelyn had run out from the crowd to her father and sister. Crimson's body gave out and collapsed on top of her dead father, fortunately not from another gunshot but possibly the sight of her father or the injection that was causing her obvious pain.

Madelyn fell down to her knees and laid her upper half on top of Crimson who laid atop of Shawn. I could now hear Madelyn's cries reach out over storm with it's demanding presence of pain. Pain that I never had heard before, even after Crimson's whole ordeal of crying out in pain from the injection.

This was a different cry of pain... one I don't think I'd ever hear again. All coming from the woman who I'd come to love. She followed this with crying on the back of Crimson's neck, the beat redness of her face blooming as she scrunched her face in a heartbreaking cry.

I'd never seen her cry before. She was a Zyto after all, we were never given the benefit of expressing our true emotions while in it. These types emotions would adopt weakness, and we'd all become unreliable. So the sight was foreign for a Zyto, but it was a valid feeling to have at a moment like this.

The gun was still gripped in my hands, I looked down at it in disbelief, my eyes seemingly burning up with dryness and I stared at it. The sleek metallic deadliness rested within the grips of my fingers, rain dripping off of it.

I was frozen with the sudden realization of what just happened.

I never fired the gun...

I dropped the handgun and looked at it as though it was an object I'd never seen before. I started not even recognizing what the contraption was. It was just a curved black object with a trigger and barrel all compacted into one whole gift of death.

There was no dropped shell, no smoke out of the barrel. Nothing. It still remained unfired. My eyes darted around frantically until they ended on the person to my right.

Zoe.

She stood to the right of me, remaining motionless. Her eyes was stunned and locked on the dead body a few yards from her.

And there was a gun dangling loosely from the fingers of her left hand before she opened her hand and dropped it.

It was her. Zoe was the one who killed Shawn. Despite everything we had through: she took it upon herself to kill him.

She must've taken the gun from one of the dead Xultants while I wasn't paying attention. The setup was perfect for her. Everything was set up perfectly for her whether it was all planned or not; it executed flawlessly. Everyone, even Crimson, were all focused on Shawn and the commotion he caused. And they would follow what exactly he was running from to see me there, with the handgun I was given. Zoe pushed me to the point where I had the sights locked on him but intuitively took it upon herself to kill him. No one would pay attention, let alone suspect Zoe of killing Shawn. It would all be pointed at me.