The last thing Edward saw was the sky going black. The last thing he smelt was the tang of blood in the air.
He felt himself scooped and cradled before everything faded out.
Renee landed on the outside of the crimson-cadaverous display with Edward in her arms - her hair all over him.
She spared a heartbroken glance at him, taking in his battered state, before turning to face behind her.
Miridald stood there - right across from them, chest heaving, eyes darting between the rough-ring of horror and her son.
The scene was just too sanguine and lurid. But her dear son's state was even more excruciating.
A tear bead slipped from her eye.
----------
Beep!... Beep!... Beep!
Regaining his consciousness, Edward couldn't help but feel agitated by the incessant beeping coming from his right.
He forced his eyes open to see blurry figures in a rather dimly lit room with an icy colour.
His eyes closed again, his nose taking in the antiseptic odor.
It registered. He had just seen figures.
Edward immediately flung his eyes open with a jerk upwards, setting himself into an upright posture before realising where he was actually at.
The hospital.
A hospital ward.
He was on a goddamn hospital bed.
"Wh-"
Before he could voice his thoughts, he heard a voice cut in - his mother. "It's okay, darling," Miridald assured, giving his right hand a gentle squeeze. "It's okay. You're safe now."
Edward hadn't realised his hand was clasped in hers. He looked at it, face blank, then looked at the other one - Anita held it, Mdachi behind her.
He scanned the entire room and saw everyone in it. Jenevive stood beside Anita, a remorseful Jesse held to her side. Renee stood behind Miridald, her expression and body language all tensed up.
There was an IV drip embedded into Edward's arm.
Without warning, Edward jerked and wrapped his arms around his mother tightly.
Miridald was startled. Everyone was.
"I thought I was going to die, Mom," he sobbed, palpable fear and pain in his voice. "I really thought I was going to die."
Everyone's heart broke.
Miridald returned the embrace, half of her body hunched over the bed's railing. "It's okay now, son," she hushed, rubbing his back softly. "It's okay. You are safe now."
Edward tore from the hug and looked into his mother's eyes. "Mom," he sniffled, cheeks tear-streaked, "I don't want to be angry with you anymore. I don't want to be estranged with you. Okay?"
"Okay, darling..."
Edward tore away from the hug again. "Don't call me that," he snapped, his voice trembling.
He pulled into the hug once more. "Don't you ever call me that please, Mom. Don't you ever call me that."
The memories of the horror he had witnessed burned deep into his mind. It tormented him, shaking up his soul with their vividness.
Tears began streaming again.
He clung onto his mother tightly and cried his heart out.
The room hushed into a sombre atmosphere, an inadmissible sorrow hanging in it.
They hadn't really known what had happened to Edward, or why, but they had gotten the severity of it through the state he was brought into the hospital in.
It was mortifying. Anita had cried uncontrollably.
Miridald held onto Edward as he wept on. Hugging him. Assuring safety and presence of the mother she knew he needed. Things were never supposed to happen as they did. He was never supposed to know the truth as he did.
"Mom..." Edward called out, still in the embrace.
"Yes, son." Miridald fought the urge to say darling, not that she knew why she couldn't.
Edward retreated sharply, hands on her shoulders, eyes trembling. "Where's Edric?" He quivered, eyes locked with his mother's.
Miridald's eyes bulged.
Edward looked around the room, as if he would suddenly spot Edric somewhere in it.
He turned back to his mother. "Mom, where is he?" His voice shook with more sorrow. "He was right there. Right there." Tears spilled. "All... all sliced up and soaked with blood. Almost dead." His voice deepened with urgency. "Please tell me you rescued him too, Mom."
He began spiralling. "How did you even find me? How-"
"Edward," Anita cut in, face horrified.
The attention of the room spun to her, many befuddled.
"What do you mean Edric? The same same Edric?"
Mdachi was eager for the answer. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Edric?
"Yes," Edward affirmed promptly, almost desperately. "He saved my life. He's some kind of terramic or something and he saved my life - from the wolves, they wanted to kill me."
"Wait, what?!" Jenevive exclaimed.
Miridald was even more tongue-tied. Her heart beated violently in her chest. "I was right," she murmured beneath her breath, position still the same - hunched over the railing.
"You-you know this Edric?" Renee questioned Anita, still very much astonished.
"Yeah," Anita answered.
Jesse was trying to piece everything together.
"I know him," Anita elucidated. "We all three do." She gestured to Mdachi and Edward.
Mdachi was now looking down in thought, hand on his chin and spectacles shining faintly at the light from outside the room - the corridor. The crack on one of his lenses could be seen.
"We go to Ngong High with him."
"Mom," Edward spun back to his mother, voice still as angst. "Why are you not talking? Why are you so shaken?... What are you hiding from me?!" He exploded.
Miridald straightened up and looked him in the eyes, hers blank.
Renee moved closer and held her by the back of her shoulders, eyes sympathetic and sorrowful.
"What's wrong with you guys?" Edward grumbled on, his crying starting again. "Why aren't you talking? Aren't you the ones who found me? Aren't you?" It was a plausible guess. "Didn't you see the kid right there on the ground all torn up and... How did you even find me and why did you bring me here?"
Edward exploded - again, "Where's Edric?!"
It startled Renee a bit. She struggled at what to say. "I... We..." she couldn't think of what to say. "He..."
Before Edward could protest, he suddenly saw Miridald slip from Renee's hold and walk to the couch - right below the blinded window looking into the corridor.
He watched.
Miridald sat down slowly and placed her hands on her knees, eyes staring voidly at the floor.
She made a chuckle, a rather sad one, eyes still fixed to the floor. "He's back," she murmured, but it was loud enough for everyone to catch it.
She looked up, eyes lighting up with a bittersweet smile. "My son's back," her voice cracked.
-----------------
Back at the house - House 254, Ngong's Flora Estate, Jarold carried his hot mug of honeyed hibiscus to his study with a rather dull, thin file in his other hand.
He set his mug on the desk, a considerable distance from the computer's keyboard, and placed the file on the other end of the table, completely away from the mug.
He was in rather homely attire: casual T-shirt, jeans trousers, and warm, 'manly' flip-flops.
Taking his seat, Jarold's attention involuntarily darted to the two august portraits of him and his family poignantly set on the walls beside the door.
The room was spacious, with the two sides of it tidied completely differently: one half of it homely, cosy, and with an arrestingly denim blue chaise lounge; the other sleek, office-like, and with a modern bookshelf.
Even with all the elegance, sophistication, and other family portraits with more family members and friends in them, nothing else stood out as much in that room as the two pictures Jarold kept looking between - ones that just had him and his two most important people in the world.
In the one to his left, Edward was just about five years old and dressed in an exquisite set of clothes. He stood between him and Miridald, head all held up like his parents and expression charming. Each of his parents had a hand placed on his shoulders, overall giving the picture a regal, familial feel.
In the one to his right... now there's where the conundrum came in. The picture was just as slick and majestic. But duller, tenser. Edward stood firmly beside his mother, away from him - deliberately, his expression cold, and his posture poised. He had just turned thirteen a few weeks prior, and their arguments had started; constant disagreements, condemnations, act-outs, and fallouts. Things had started going to shit immediately after Edward's birthday - slowly, gradually. Noticeably.
Jarold's lips pressed into a thin line, his expression sombre. He missed the days he would freely laugh with his son, hang out with him, and just be goofy all day long without fear of a misunderstanding. He missed his son. He missed being 'the best dad in the world'.
A glint of light flashed in his office through the undraped window behind him. A car, a passing one. It grounded Jarold back into reality.
He looked back through the window briefly before turning back to his desk. Just another normal night in the estate: the street lights on, some kids still playing outside, and a few vehicles passing by the street.
The only illuminating thing in the office at the time was the desk lamp, a few inches beside the computer.
Jarold pulled the file to the centre of the table, in front of the keyboard, and opened it, his other hand guiding the mug of hibiscus to his mouth. He took a sip, then set the mug down, still a considerable distance from the keyboard, before pulling the lamp closer to the file.
He opened it to a particular page, set himself to a stern posture, and read through, keenly.
It was Hallington's will. The one that left Edward as his sole inheritor for most of his properties and assets.
Jarold finished reading through it. He closed it, posture still the same - hands clasped together while elbows rested on the table.
"Hm," he scoffed, trying to piece something, or somethings, together while his eyes wandered about the room.
There was something definitely suspicious about this case.
Remembering something, Jarold stood up from the chair, switched the light off, and grabbed his car keys from the shelf, file in the other hand.
He slipped into a jacket of his in the foyer closet and put on more formal shoes before leaving the house, locking the door behind him.
He was going to the police station. He had a feeling Detective Bharat would help. He seemed to have known more than he let out.
The car was still in the driveway, not that he normally parked it in the garage. Jarold got in, set the file on the passenger seat, and drove off.
As soon as he left, another car drove to the front of the house - sleek, black, not overly extravagant. Inside it was Grelad, dressed in an official attire. He gave the house a brief scrutiny, an almost amused expression on his face, before starting the engine again and driving off - toward the direction Jarold had driven to.