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"A room full of sadness,
A broken heart,
And only me to blame,
For every single part."
-Gary Barlow, Let Me Go
"Kill him!"
His own words still rang harshly in his ears; loud and sharp in the silence of his empty home. He stood among the wreckage, worrying his bowler hat in his quivering hands as he took in the dank and gray living room. The wood flooring groaned underneath him with every hesitant step he took forward. The soft skittering of paper, kicked up by his footsteps, intermingled with the grating sound of crunching glass until he stopped moving and could only hear the heaviness of his breath.
"Kill him! Kill him!"
Reid inhaled shakily, and managed to maneuver himself into the only upright chair as his knees buckled from under him. His left hand clutched tightly to the brim of his hat, as if it were an anchor to his surreal reality, but it took no more than a seconds gaze about his surroundings to profoundly surmise the state of his whole being: absolute devastation.
Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, the erstwhile beacon of decency in the human cesspit that was Whitechapel, was reduced to the savagery of the likes of the men and women he spent the entirety of his career attempting to bring to a heel. He had striven to maintain and cultivate the outward serenity and stoic demeanor he portrayed daily, and had found himself revealing (and, to his dismay, reveling in) the unforeseen rage he fought to keep within his stony façade.
"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"
His desperation was palpable with each bellowed plea.
End it! End it now, I beg of you.
Why had he not shouted that amidst the roaring din of sweaty, boisterous men?
Was he too proud to beg?
How had he not noticed that while his moral compass began to drift from due north, that his faithful Sgt. Drake's was doing the opposite?
Please. Please, just end it all for Christ's sake.
And now? What had he left?
Matilda. Emily. Hobbs. Deborah. Jane. Drake. Bella. Flight. Had he not lost, betrayed or have been betrayed himself by all of those names? And more, even still. Had they not haunted his every particle of being from the second the sun rose high above their humble abodes till it settled among the hills nestled behind the tombstones of their lost? If he ever got the chance to lay his weary, achy head against the coarse cotton of a pillow and close his eyes long enough for sleep to take his exhausted body, they banded together in a chorus of judgment and angst until he started awake.
The white-knuckled grip he claimed on the brim of his bowler loosened until it fell to the ground with a barely audible thud. He felt the last vestiges of energy slowly fade from every pore in his large, solid frame as he allowed his hazy, watery eyes drift from his navel-gazing to the steaming cup of tea he had just drank from. His long, dark lashes fluttered against his cheekbone as they closed against the painfully gray palette of the room.
His heavy head fell forward; his strong jaw nestled against his still, broad chest. A peaceful smile graced his face in the brightness of death, where it couldn't emerge in the darkness of his life. A final whisper of a breath escaped his grateful body into the stillness of the air.
By the time Jackson had noticed the missing flower petals, concocted his antidote, and burst into Reid's hollow home it was too late. He could do nothing more for the Inspector but fall to his knees before him, grasp his cold hand, and mutter, "Goddamn you, Reid."
The End.
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