Excerpt: Through the Haze

He glanced down at his hand to see a grotesque display of blood, and he knew by the tingling and numbness shooting through his nose that he had done some serious damage. But he knew that- by the sounds of the consistant gunfire- he was one of the lucky ones. He was pretty sure that there were people here who were dealing with much worse injuries than a bloody nose.

With this in mind, he forced himself up, realizing now that he no longer had Lexi's hand. He cursed himself for focusing so much on his own pain, ignoring the panic welling up in his throat as he spun in a circle, his eyed searching desperately for the figure of his stepsister. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he scanned every girl around him, cursing mentally everytime his eyes fell upon the wrong girl. He needed to find her. He had to find her.

"Braden!" he heard a feminine voice call out, and he swivelled on the spot to see Lexi standing about ten feet away from him, her expression mirroring the relief in his. He felt some of the colour return to his cheeks as she motioned for him to come towards her, but as another shot fired somewhere behind him, he ducked down on instinct to avoid the shot. He saw the look of sheer panic cross Lexi's face as he disappeared from view, and so he was quick to rise back up, to reassure her that he had not been hit.

But in the one moment it had taken him to duck down, a fresh crowd of panicking people had pushed past him, and had blocked his view of Lexi. He stood as tall as he could, his eyes scanning the area where she had been standing before, but he saw that she had disappeared. She was no longer standing in the same spot as she had been before.

He felt his stomach drop with panic, and his face immediately paled.

"Oh God, no..." he muttered, shaking his head as his legs weakened beneath him "Not Lexi... Lexi!"

Braden reacted immediately, finding some small sense of control over his legs.

People were still panicking and running, and he was almost certain that there were still shots being fired, for there was a distinct banging some distance behind the crowd. But despite the uproar, Braden was immune to anything but his search for his stepsister. All he cared about was getting Lexi, and getting out of there. Those shots seemed like they were getting closer and closer, and he didn't want to chance getting in the way of whoever was behind this.