Underworld

A few hours later and the girls were all still confined to one room, occasionally with the wives going off to grab coffees and biscuits. Nor Brendon or any of the other men had appeared in the room and information as to what was going on was sparse. The atmosphere however, had begun to loosen up and relax. Brendon’s mother had called Lara’s parents and had explained a very much censored version of the night events and eventually, had convinced them that it was fine to stay the night.

Word had filtered through that it was Jack who had been hit, one bullet through the thigh while he was working out at West Heidelberg Plaza Gym. The bullet had hit a major artery luckily enough; one of Victoria’s best hospitals was only just down the road. He was now in surgery and had lost a lot of blood.

“Lara, Brendon’s just upstairs third door to the right, he’s preparing a room for you for tonight.”

Lara didn’t really want to speak to Brendon after the night’s incidents; she didn’t know whether to be angry, thankful or sympathetic towards him. It was his fault that she was currently in lock down in his house however, if they were murdered on their way to her house she’d be in a much worse situation then she was in now. He also now had a friend in hospital, near death and with that she realised that it was impossible to stay angry at him, what heartless person could stay angry at someone while that’s happening?

“Brendon?” Lara whispered, knocking on the door a few times “Are you there?” there was no answer to the door, no calling back, in fact, she could not hear any movement in the room. She went back to the foot of the stairs and recounted Mrs. Uries words, third door, to the right. She knocked again “Brendon, are you inside?” again, she got no reply. And then she realised, he was in there alone, anything could’ve happened up there. Someone could have been waiting in there; he could be dying on the ground right now.

Upon this realisation Lara immediately burst into the room, her heart racing at a thousand miles per hour “Brendon?” Brendon was lying on his back on the bed, not moving
“Brendon?” she screamed again “Oh my God Mrs U-”

“Don’t” a shaky voice which sounded somewhat like Brendon’s spoke.

“Brendon?” she said slowly as she turned on the light.

“I’m sorry, I-I fuck, I didn’t want this to happen you know, I- I didn’t know...” Brendon could
barely speak, he wasn’t thinking and could barely move, apart from the shaking that was rattling throughout his body “Please, please don’t h-hate me” he begged “I-I-” he was choking on his words.

“B-Brendon what’s wrong, wha-”

“I-I don’t know, i-”

“Was someone here?”

Brendon shook his head “T-that’s the problem, no one was here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I-it get’s l-like this, when no, no one’s around” he stuttered “Can you turn the light out, p-please j-just p-put a lamp on?”

“What gets like this?” Lara asked as she turned on one of the lamps on the bedside table and sat down next to Brendon’s body.

“I do” Brendon finished.

It was true, ever since his own personal shooting incident Brendon couldn’t stand being alone. He’d shake, break down, cry. He hadn’t slept a full night’s sleep in over a month and in every moment of silence, all he could hear were hundreds of bullets firing around him.
And when he was sleeping, on those rare occasions, he realised he’d rather be awake. In his dreams, not only could he hear the shots fired at him, but he could see the scene unfolding around him. It was like he was watching a movie; he’d see himself collecting the books, trying to figure out a few math sums in his head, getting them wrong, thinking of getting a calculator. He was always would be watching the dream from the same spot, he’d be sitting just under the window where the first bullet came through. It was the same every time, the first bullet would sail through the window while dream Brendon would attempt to yell out to his real life counterpart. He’d try to scream, with all his might but no sound would ever come out.

“Brooke told me about what happened last week” she almost whispered.

“I’m sorry” he said, turning to face her “I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in this all.”

Lara stayed quiet. To be honest, she didn’t want to be caught up in “all this” either, whatever all this was. She almost regretted not watching the news, not having a small idea of what these people were capable of. She though all families were practically the same, obviously, she was quite wrong.

“Hey Brendon,” Lara said quietly, lying down next to him “this isn’t your fault you know.”

He raised his eyebrows at her “Please don’t start with that Lara, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be stuck here for the night.”

“Well who says I don’t like being stuck here with you for the night” she smiled, turning the light out.

“What are you doing?” Brendon asked as he felt some blankets being pulled over him.

“Sleeping.”

“Can I stay here?” this was one of those nights when he really didn’t want to sleep alone.

“Sure, are there any windows in here?”

“Nope”

“Well then how are we going to know when its morning?” Lara questioned.

“I dunno, guess?”