RIPTIDE | Rafe Cameron

18. 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦

It's 3AM and I'm still awake.

I've not slept since getting home, and I couldn't even if I tried. Every time I close my eyes I see it all, I see the blood, I see Sheriff Peterkin, I see the police car pulling up, I see Ward Cameron doing chest compressions on Peterkin's lifeless body. It just goes round and round inside my head like some sort of sordid horror movie.

If I could press pause on the movie or better still yank the video tape out of my brain and throw it against the nearest wall and watch it shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, then I would. I don't want to remember what I saw, no one should be subjected to that.

Not even Ward Cameron.

I've tried everything to distract my brain, I've flicked through every TV channel multiple times, I've tried to read one of my books, I even tried to do a workout in my bedroom, hoping the adrenaline coursing through my veins would help. But every other second my concentration is interrupted by the images of Peterkin, dead.

How do people block this stuff out? I'm not the first and I'm certainly not the last person to have experienced something as traumatic as this. I could ask Mum for one of the sleeping tablets she started taking when Maggie disappeared, but that'll probably knock me out like a zombie, and I'd rather be traumatised than an emotional zombie.

So now I'm just letting the thoughts and images plague my brain, like my own form of personal torture. Every time it plays in my brain I get one step closer to feeling totally numb, the trembling has stopped so that's something at least.

I lie on my single bed, staring at the ceiling, imaging that my brain is projecting the images I can't remove. If someone could find me a way to stop seeing these pictures I would take their offer in a heartbeat.

I've been tempted to raid my Dad's alcohol cabinet downstairs, but I can't even bring myself to get out of the bed. Besides I'm sure he'd notice if a bottle or even some of a bottle went missing.

Just as I feel myself drifting to sleep, letting myself fall into the vicious cycle of trauma driven dreams I feel a hand covering my mouth.

I open my eyes in fear, kicking my legs out before promptly realising that the hand belongs to JJ. His once reassuring smile is gone, and replaced with a concerned frown. 

As I glance around my room I realise that Kiara, Pope and JJ are also here, their facial expressions not dissimilar from JJ's.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I whisper, pulling JJ's hand away from my mouth as I sit up, holding my bed covers close to my body.

"Where have you been?" Kiara asks, folding her arms across her chest, standing beside Pope.

"I was at the police station, then my parents brought me back here." I explain, not exactly sure what I've done to receive such an interrogation.

"What did you say to the police?" John B asks, stepping closer to me, a look in his eyes that I haven't seen since Big John didn't come home.

"I just answered their questions, they kept asking loads of weird ones about you." I tell him, wiping my tired eyes.

"What do you mean by weird?" Pope asks.

"They were asking stuff about whether you own a gun or not, and obviously I said no." I assure them all.

"So why do they think that John B shot the Sheriff?" Kiara hisses, stepping closer to me, getting visibly frustrated.

"You didn't shoot the Sheriff?" I look up at him.

"Of course not!" John B groans.

"Ward told me it was you," I explain, "I thought either you were trying to shoot him or he was lying and he shot the sheriff himself."