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This could not be happening.
Nile was curled up on the couch in their latest safehouse, blanket wrapped close and tight. She had the television on, turned to an international news station currently reporting on the United States.
More specifically, on the protests occurring across the country.
The rest of the Guard was out doing their normal tasks. Nicky and Joe were grocery shopping for dinner, Andy was doing whatever Andy did when she wasn’t beating the crap out of Nile under the guise of training. None of them were here to see what was happening in her home country.
She spared a glance at her lock screen. On Mom and Layne, in the middle of Chicago, right in the thick of the protests there. Was her mom safe? Was Layne being careful, or was he out in the streets with everyone else, protesting to stay alive?
Nile knew that if she’d been home, she’d be right there in the crowd. Layne would be with her, no questions asked.
A text came across her screen. She didn’t immediately recognize the number, but it could only come from one person. I know you’re watching. Please don’t watch what’s happening in Chicago.
She was never really good at following orders.
She quickly found a channel airing a live stream from the streets of Chicago. And almost immediately burst into tears. It was her old neighborhood. She could easily recognize so many people she’d grown up with and around, even behind their face masks.
And standing right in up front, holding a sign that would probably come back to her in her nightmares, was Layne.
My sister didn’t die protecting this country just so you could kill us in the streets.
They were peacefully protesting. But it wasn’t going to matter. She knew what would happen soon. But she couldn’t look away. She had to bear witness. She’d be right there with Layne if she was across the world in a tiny town in Italy, so far away that she couldn’t be there for him. For them. For all the people she left behind.
She didn’t register the front door open, or the exclamation in Italian. She just saw them marching on her friends. On her brother .
“Oh sorellina…”
She couldn’t feel Joe’s arms wrap around her, Nicky’s hands clenching hers. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from home. Away from Layne.
Her phone lit up again. Nile didn’t even twitch to look at it, eyes locked on the screen. Nicky spared a glance at it, shared a look with Joe, and whispered to her, “he’s right. Don’t look, Nile. Not yet. Don’t look.”
She couldn’t stop looking, just like she couldn’t stop the tears that kept on flowing.