Chapter 1: Prologue

Prologue:

Everyone contemplates death sometime or the other. We casually think about death often, but never in a way that connects it to us. Even when we think of murder, we talk about in a way that makes it sound like it's something far away from us. Like it could never happen to us.

"I'm so annoyed right now that I could kill someone!" or "ugh, what a jerk. If I had to live with him, I'd probably strangle him!" Don't we all say or think things like this? But we don't mean it. It's not like we'd ever actually do it.

Talking like that doesn't mean that people have the capability of murdering a person. Saying it and doing it are two completely different things.

Besides, there's always the notion of going to prison. Most people I knew would shut up pretty quick at the prospect of being locked up. At least, that was what I used to think.

Before it happened.

It had been completely unexpected. Darren had always been such a good person. Sure, growing up, we hadn't had the best relationship, but we'd cared about each other. He was my brother, for God's sake. Yeah, there was some sibling rivalry, but we'd gotten closer after our parents death. We'd helped each other, been each other's support through all of it. We knew everything about each other, and kept no secrets to ourselves. And I'd realised that Darren was insanely important to me, since he was my only family left.

Because of my parents unjust murder, I had never exactly questioned why Darren wanted to become a cop. I figured that it was because of his desire to help people, and to stop these kind of aimless deaths, tragedies that could be avoided. But his reason had been different. Something he'd never disclosed to me.

Now I was 17 years old, I was moving in with Aunt Abigail and my older brother was in jail.

I guess I didn't know Darren as well as I had thought.