FicWad

Chapter Nineteen

He felt his consciousness fading as he tried to keep his eyes from blurring. He looked up at Shannon with a stifled plea attempting to break its way out of his throat. His hands fought at Shannon's grip on his throat but his struggle got weaker with each breath Shannon stole. He felt tears fall from his eyes, a hurt and betrayal entering him without refrain. His mind was going blank, his pain was beginning to fall away and his eyes started to slide closed.

He heard Shannon tell him repetitively that he had stolen everything, that he had taken from him every real shot. Jared wanted to protest, wanted to say that he had never intended to do any of what Shannon said he had done. Somewhere inside though he knew that he had wronged him, perhaps not in the way Shannon claimed but in other ways. He had every intention of taking Alicia once she found out Shannon had cheated on her, he had always played off his mom's affections deliberately to slide right into the favorite role. Everything now was displayed before him and the sting of his guilt was overwhelming.

He heard Shannon let out a protesting scream just as all pressure released from his throat. He didn't have time to see what had happened, he rolled over onto his stomach in a fit of coughs and struggled to regain his strength. He got up on his knees, pushed his hands through his hair before wiping fiercely at his eyes. He rose up slowly, trembling a little as he did and then turned to face the scene behind him.

Detective Hiddleston stood there with a couple of other officers who had Shannon restrained barely. He gave up eventually and allowed them to lead him out of the apartment. Jared met the Detective halfway and tried to shake himself of the fear that had nearly paralyzed him.

"Thanks for coming..." Jared said, his voice raspy. He had called the detective immediately after he had gotten the call from Shannon. He figured that when Emma had run out of the apartment it had alerted the detective and thankfully they had rushed in.

"Want to talk about it later? At the station?"

Jared nodded and then dragged himself out of the apartment after the detective. The sun hit him blistering his vision. He saw the parked police cars and saw Emma sitting on the steps in a heap of tears. He swallowed harshly and walked down the steps, past her and towards his own car. he slid in and rested his hands on the wheel. His eyes found Shannon's in the back of the cop car but he turned away quickly. He couldn't find the words to say to him, the thoughts to think about him, or the feelings to feel for him. Everything was in fragments, nothing felt whole anymore. He caught Emma's gaze as she stood up and he felt everything inside of him fall apart. He had tried so hard to become someone worthy of being who she deserved only to find that none of it had been real. He deserved it he supposed, deserved being the one to be hurt. But the pain stung so deeply he wasn't sure if he could ever feel anything put together again.