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Junior Detective Flynn bolted upright as suddenly as he'd collapsed just a day ago, sitting on the hard garden dirt. His heart was racing, as if it were trying to escape his chest.
But it was beating.
He pressed his hand to his chest, able to feel the rhythmic beating of his heart.
He was alive. But how?
Behind him, the dead body he'd been assigned to investigate sat upright with an expression much similar to his own. Also breathing. Also alive again. Equally as confused.
Flynn didn't have time to question it much further before a gunshot echoed out from inside the house. He jumped to his feet, stumbling only a little as he raced through the open back door and up the stairs. Following a series of overlaying voices to what appeared to be a child's bedroom.
Inspector Whitstable was on the floor to the right of the door, hands clutching a bleeding wound in his leg. Charles, a friend of the Inspector's Flynn has met before, standing at his side. But it was the third person in the room that caught Flynn's attention.
Agatha Lawrence's younger son, James, stood on the far end of the room, pointing a gun towards the other two with shaking hands. Agatha's body laid lifeless behind him, blood dripping from a clean shot to the head.
"Easy boy, put the gun down now," Inspector Whitstable insisted through his teeth, trying his hardest to mask the pain.
"She's dead…" James whimpered through tears. "And… and my brother isn't back! You — you lied!"
"We don't know that he's not James," the Inspector countered quickly.
"James." Flynn spoke as softly as he could, to not spook the clearly already terrified boy.
Everyone turned to him, Flynn took a single step into the room. "You're brother, he's downstairs. Alive again."
"… Really?"
Flynn nodded with another step closer to James. He kept his hands visible to the boy, his eye on the gun in his trembling hands.
"I was just like him a moment ago, dead in the garden. And I'm very much alive now. So please, put the gun down, and you can go see him. Okay?"
James thought for a second, allowing Flynn to get just a few steps away from him, before tightening his grip around the gun and pointing it straight at Flynn's chest.
"Flynn —"
He held his hand out back, insisted Inspector Whitstable and Charles stay put.
"How do I know you aren't lying?" James questioned loudly. His whole body was shaking, unable to see past the fear and grief that consumed him.
"You're just going to have to trust me James. I know, you really, really care for your brother. You told me this, when I asked you where his room was," Flynn recalled. "And I also know you don't want to hurt anyone else today. Think we've all had enough of people getting hurt."
James didn't say anything, his finger hovering above the trigger of the unsteadily aimed gun.
Footsteps from the stairs broke the silence. They ran towards the room, stopping suddenly at the doorways as-
"James!"
His eyes went wide, hopefully looking behind Flynn.
"Terrance!"
James ran towards his brother, oblivious to the Detective sliding the gun right from his hands as he passed him. He turned to see Terrance holding James, comforting the young boy as he cried into his shirt. Flynn turned his focus to his own mentor.
"Inspector! Are you — "
"Flynn, my boy!" Ignoring his own wound, Inspector Whitstable pulled Flynn down into a hug. "Thank God you're alright!"
"I'm just fine now, Inspector," Flynn promised. "And I'm not the one who was just shot."
"But you were technically dead," the Inspector pointed out, letting go of Flynn and allowing him to look at his wound. "However, I must agree, that that -" he's gestured to the wound with his bloodied hand "- needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later."
"So much for no longer needed the cane, Inspector," Charles teased as he helped Flynn with a temporary bandage.
"A worthy price to pay, my friend," said Inspector Whitstable as he glanced over at the dropped cane beside him. His eyes than trailed over to James and Terrance, before ending back on Flynn. "A worthy price indeed."