It had been several hours since it all went down and now the two remaining men -- the two left standing -- were stuck in what the younger one now refered to as the 'hotel of despair', seated on a couch together in yet another room on the 15th floor. Together as they were in the physical sense... they were totally and seperately alone in their thoughts.
One was stuck in the moment of finding his friend lying lifeless on the floor of room 1506. Stuck with the memory of folding his hands over those wounds and praying like hell as the blood still continued to seep through. And the screaming... God the screaming. He was stuck with the image of that God-awful look on Brian's face as the blood still ran between his fingers and he couldn't reach out and he couldn't help and he could only watch as Aj's blood seeped and Brian fell there in a heap on the floor beside him. And now... right now... he was only grateful for the fact that they'd finally freed him from the confines of the hell that was that room, with the ugly tan carpet, now stained a brilliant blood red. And maybe... maybe if he thought hard enough and long enough he'd be grateful to be alive too.
The other was stuck with knowing too little, and seeing to much. And those two things... those were tearing him up inside. He needed to know if Brian and Aj were okay. He hadn't been there, hadn't seen it with his own eyes and looking at his friend sitting next to him on the couch, the one who had been there and had seen it all... he dare not ask. And he'd seen too much in the room down the hall and the thoughts turned his stomach and made him feel like curling up in a ball and giving up on the entire human race because he still had yet to figure out how anyone... anyone... could do something like that to another human being. And he was grateful to be alive but he was starting to believe that death would be easier than living with the thoughts of the things he'd seen, and that... that scared him almost as much as the things he'd seen because he wouldn't let them win. And boy wasn't he tired... and wouldn't all of this be easier if he could just crawl into that bed over there, cover himself with the blankets and block out the world. Maybe then he could wake up tomorrow and it would all be different.
And the other two people sitting in the room across from the two young men who were lost in their own thoughts -- Detectives Boscorelli and Keenerson. And if asked at that exact moment the two of them would have told you they were no closer to solving this mystery than they were the moment they stepped into that hotel 2 hours ago... and that they had no real idea whether these two men were in any real danger either and that wasn't a good feeling.
They'd been sitting in this room for a good 15 minutes, just watching the two young men as they sat in silence. Bosco still stewed over his breakdown in the hallway but Keener knew like any good detective... and if there was one thing Bosco was it was a good detective... that he would get over it quickly enough to do his job effectively. She watched the young men, sitting there across from her on the couch, the blonde with eyes full of tears, the older man's bloodshot, and her heart nearly broke for them. Her co-workers always said Amy had the exterior of a rough and tough detective, but on the inside she was all heart and they were right because she could see the pain in their eyes and feel the sorrow in their hearts and the weights on their shoulders and it nearly broke that tough exterior. After all, she too had seen that room and the things this person had done... the pain he'd inflicted, and she knew it had to be weighing hard on these two men and she wanted to let them go and see their friends but she also knew that their lives may still be in danger and her job was not to be their friend and to make them feel better... her job was to protect them.
Boscorelli looked over towards her and nodded... she nodded back. It was time to get this investigation underway and that meant it was time for these two young men to share their thoughts.
She looked towards them again. It was not going to be easy.
