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Dutch could feel himself slipping away. The kind and gentle hands that held his sanity together were gone and by his own doing at that. He did not act. He did not save him. Instead he peered around a corner and watched as a bullet was fired and the ground was painted red.
At the moment he could’ve sworn he had been dropped into Hell. The air had been stolen from him and he was frozen for the briefest of moments. He saw white. He saw red. He saw Hosea fall to the ground and not rise again. He heard the gunshot, he heard the cry of pain, the thud of flesh on pavement, and the final strangle of choked breath.
He did nothing to save him.
You didn’t save him. You didn’t save him. You didn’t save him.
He should’ve done something. How could he go on? How could he continue forward when he could feel their change? When he could feel their doubt and their anger? Why should they love him now, when their father and friend was gone while the other one, while Dutch, was still here?
Never again will they know Hosea. Never feel his gentle hands. Never hear his gentle voice. Never be welcomed by his smile. Never again will they know Hosea and Dutch knows, he knows , it’s all his fault.
His friends and family still follow, but he doesn’t want to lead. He can’t save them. He can’t protect them. He doesn’t deserve them.
He demands that his gang still follow, but they question his leadership. He doesn’t want to save them. He doesn’t want to protect them. He doesn’t want them.
He loves them but he hates them. For everything they are and for everything they can not be. They are his family but they are not Hosea.
They are his but he is not theirs. Not anymore, not without Hosea.
“Hosea,” Slips out in the night, but there is no answer. A name that was once honey on his tongue has turned rotten.
He could feel himself slipping away and, if he was telling the truth, he didn’t care who he dragged down with him.