The sirens shattered the night.
Red and blue lights painted the walls like war signals—flashing through the broken silence that had swallowed the house whole. Rain still beat against the roof in soft, cold rhythms, like the world itself was mourning.
Bella sat on the front steps, arms wrapped around herself, soaked to the skin, blood on her sleeves. Her breath came in shallow, rigid gasps, eyes fixed on nothing. Everything around her moved too fast—yet inside, time barely moved at all.
They had carried Garcia out on a stretcher.
He hadn't opened his eyes again.
She'd held his hand all the way down the stairs, whispering his name like it could glue his soul back into his body. But his grip was limp, skin going cold under her fingers. One of the paramedics had gently pried her hand away.
"Ma'am—we need to move now."
She hadn't answered. She just let go.
The stretcher vanished into the ambulance. Doors slammed. Wheels spun through puddles. And then he was gone.
Just like that.
Janette stood farther down the driveway, wrapped in a coat someone had thrown over her. Her face was pale, mascara streaked down her cheeks, eyes rimmed red. She hadn't said a word since Garcia collapsed. Not to Bella. Not to the police officers taking statements. Not even to herself.
She stared at the street as if expecting to wake up any moment.
A policewoman approached Bella with a clipboard and soft eyes. "Miss Bella, we'll need your statement."
"I shot him," Bella said. Her voice was numb. Hollow. "I didn't mean to. I was trying to de-escalate. I—I reacted."
The officer nodded slowly. "We believe you. You'll still need to come in later. But for now, you're not under arrest."
Bella didn't react. She felt like a ghost wearing her own skin.
Inside the house, two detectives took photographs of the bedroom. One placed Garcia's gun in a sealed bag. The bed was still unmade. The sheets still twisted. Blood had dripped onto the floorboards—small, dark puddles marking his final moments in that room.
"Jesus," one of the detectives muttered. "All this over betrayal and timing."
"Not timing," the other said grimly. "He snapped. His world broke. She just pulled the final thread."
Outside, Bella rubbed her arms, rain still falling like whispers. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
She closed her eyes.
She saw him—Garcia, wide-eyed, wounded, whispering her name with a kind of peace that didn't belong to someone dying.
The moment haunted her.
"Please…" she whispered to no one. "Please let him live…"
But she knew he was already gone.
The house was quiet now.
No shouting.
No crying.
Only the soft sob of a world that had lost something it didn't know it needed.
The squad car's interior smelled faintly of sweat and plastic. Bella sat in the back, still wet from the rain, her hands folded stiffly in her lap. Her clothes were damp and cold, sticking to her skin like guilt. Blood had dried beneath her fingernails.
The officer driving glanced at her through the rearview mirror every so often, but he didn't speak. Neither did she.
Outside the window, the city blurred—streetlights smearing across the glass, sirens in the distance rising and falling like tired ghosts. Every building looked the same. Every turn brought her no closer to anything she recognized.
She didn't ask where they were going.
She already knew.
Metro Precinct 14 – Downtown
The fluorescent lights in the station buzzed overhead. The front desk was cluttered with paperwork, styrofoam coffee cups, and tired-looking officers typing reports at sluggish speeds.
As Bella was led inside, the world felt too sharp—too bright. Like her body was present, but her mind had refused to follow.
The officer guiding her, a woman named Detective Rhys, placed a hand gently on her shoulder. "You're not under arrest. But we do need a formal statement. Come with me."
Bella nodded, mute.
They passed through a hallway lined with bulletin boards and mugshots, crossed into a side room with a table, two chairs, and a flickering light overhead. A small camera was mounted on the wall, its red dot blinking.
The kind of room meant to strip you bare—even if you had nothing to hide.
Rhys gestured to a seat. "Water?"
Bella nodded.
The detective handed her a paper cup and took the seat across from her, notepad ready.
"Let's start from the beginning," Rhys said, her tone calm, practiced. "What happened tonight?"
Bella's voice was thin, shaking. "He walked in… on his wife. Janette. With another man."
"Did you know the man?"
"No." Her hands tightened around the cup. "But I could tell—Garcia, he wasn't okay. He looked like… like a man unraveling. He had a gun."
"Did he threaten her?"
"He didn't shoot. He didn't even shout. He was just… devastated. Like his heart stopped before his body did."
Rhys's pen scratched against the page. "And your gun?"
"I brought it out to de-escalate. To stop him. He wasn't listening. I panicked. The shot just—went off."
Silence settled between them for a beat.
"You had formal training?"
"Yes. I used to practice with my father. He was ex-military."
The detective nodded, writing.
A knock came at the door.
Another officer leaned in. "Morgue called. Garcia didn't make it. Declared dead on arrival."
Bella's breath hitched. Even though she'd known—deep down—she felt something inside her collapse like a burnt-out star.
Detective Rhys turned back to her gently. "We'll take fingerprints, log your statement. After that, you're free to go for now. No charges being filed yet. Internal review will determine next steps."
Bella nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
Booking Room – Later That Night
A female officer took her fingerprints. Another snapped photos for the record. Bella stood motionless, following instructions like she wasn't inside her body anymore.
"Hands flat. Look into the camera. Don't blink."
Each click of the shutter felt like a hammer to the heart.
After, she was returned to the lobby with a warm blanket draped over her shoulders. A coffee cup was placed beside her, untouched. Her phone buzzed, but she didn't look. She just stared at the floor tiles—counting them. Avoiding her reflection in the glass doors.
4:12 AM
Detective Rhys reappeared, coat in hand.
"You can go," she said gently. "Do you have someone to call?"
Bella shook her head.
Rhys sighed and wrote something down. "We'll contact you tomorrow for follow-up. Try to get some rest."
Bella walked out into the still-wet streets. She didn't go home.
She walked for blocks, down alleys and under streetlamps, not even feeling the chill.
Garcia's blood was still on her shirt.
And somewhere behind the weight in her chest, something whispered that this wasn't over.
Not even close.
The house was quiet now.
Too quiet.
Janette sat alone at the edge of their bed, where the sheets still bore the weight of betrayal. Her robe hung loosely around her, but she couldn't feel her skin. Only the cold. Only the silence. Only the way the blood had smeared across the floor when Garcia had collapsed.
He had been holding the gun—but he hadn't fired.
She had screamed.
Bella had pulled the trigger.
But it was her fault.
She had broken him.
She had watched the man she once loved die just feet away from the place she let another man kiss her neck.
And the worst part?
He hadn't even looked angry.
Just broken.
His eyes—the way they searched her, not with rage, but with that raw, bottomless hurt. Like he was hoping she'd scream "It's not what it looks like" even though it was exactly what it looked like.
"Garcia," she whispered, curling her fingers into the blood-stained blanket.
She used to love how his name tasted on her tongue.
Now it just felt like glass.
Her mind replayed the moment again and again.
The door opening.
His silence.
The gun lowering slowly.
Bella's voice crying out.
The shot.
The thud.
The way he looked at her one last time like she was everything and nothing all at once.
And then—
Stillness.
Hours Later
Janette sat in the interrogation room, opposite a young officer who didn't know how to look at her without flinching.
"Can you confirm your relationship to the deceased?"
She blinked slowly. "Wife. Or… I guess, was."
"Do you know the man you were with?"
She laughed. Just once. Bitter. "Do I know him? No. Not really. I thought I did."
"You understand this event is under internal investigation, and we'll need your full cooperation—"
"Cooperation?" she whispered. "Do you think I meant for him to die?"
The officer hesitated. "Ma'am, I—"
"No. Of course not. No one means for anything, do they?" She looked up, eyes rimmed with red. "They just do. And then they live with it."
Later That Morning – At Home
She stood in the bedroom doorway.
Cleaners had already removed the blood. The police had taken what they needed. Everything looked exactly the same.
Except it wasn't.
She walked to the closet and opened it. Garcia's coat still hung there. His cologne clung to it like memory.
She buried her face into it.
And finally let herself cry.
Elsewhere – Garcia's Consciousness (Unaware)
Darkness.
But not nothing.
Garcia floated in it, not awake, not asleep. His last memories flickered—Janette's face. Bella's hand. The pain.
But then…
Peace?
No. Not quite.
Something hummed at the edges of his being. Like a door creaking open inside the void.
He wasn't aware yet.
But he wasn't gone.
Not completely.
Not forever.
....
There was no sound.
No ceiling.
No floor.
Just light. A soft gray light—warm, but distant. As if the universe wrapped itself in fog and forgot to breathe.
Garcia floated through it.
He didn't feel his body anymore, but he remembered it—muscles trained from years of fieldwork, the weight of his gun holster, the stiffness in his shoulders after long days spent chasing shadows and lies.
But that wasn't what filled him now.
No.
It was her.
Janette.
He saw her like a painting behind his eyelids—laughing in the kitchen, barefoot on the hardwood floor, stirring coffee and humming an old Etta James song.
He remembered the way she'd sleep on her side, one arm stretched toward him like she couldn't bear to exist even in dreams without touching him.
He remembered the first time they kissed. It had rained. They'd gotten soaked running from the movie theater, her hair plastered to her cheeks. He'd called her storm girl for weeks after that.
And he remembered the small things. The way she always read the last page of a book first. The way she sang in the car when she thought he wasn't listening.
God.
He had loved her.
He loved her still.
But like cracks spiderwebbing across glass, the memory began to bend.
Because after the warmth came the cold.
After the laughter—came the silence.
After the first kiss—came the first lie.
He remembered coming home late more often. Remembered how Janette stopped asking where he'd been. He remembered the way her eyes used to light up when he walked in… and how, over time, they stopped.
And then—
That night.
Her hands on another man. Her breath hitching under someone else's touch.
The look on her face when she saw him.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Just regret.
And still—he had pointed the gun not to kill, but to ask.
Why?
Why wasn't he enough?
His chest ached, even though his body was gone. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the pain was part of him now—threaded into his soul.
Regret crept in slowly.
He should've asked her what was wrong when the silence first started.
He should've come home early instead of chasing ghosts through alleyways and false leads.
He should've told her every single day that he loved her, even when it felt like they were just roommates playing house.
He should have noticed.
But he hadn't.
And now, he was here. Wherever here was. Watching it all collapse from the other side of a mirror.
The happy memories faded like smoke.
And all that remained was the echo of the final shot.
And the taste of failure.
He screamed—but there was no sound.
Not yet.
Only the quiet.
Only the fall.
The quiet didn't end all at once.
It bent.
Shifted.
Folded inward like the moment before a dream breaks.
Garcia drifted, lost in his own regret, until something sliced through the silence.
A voice.
Soft. Curious.
Not human. But not inhuman either.
"Hey… are you okay?"
His eyes opened—if they ever closed at all.
There was light again. This time golden, like the last seconds of a sunset caught in a jar.
He blinked. Or tried to. "What…?"
"You've been here a while," the voice said. "Longer than most."
Garcia turned. There was a shape beside him now—a silhouette of warmth and stars. No face. No features. Just presence. Like a thought made solid.
"Where am I?"
"That's a tricky question," the voice said, amused. "You died. That part's easy."
Garcia winced. "So… this is it? Some kind of afterlife?"
"Not exactly. You're in-between. You lingered. Most don't."
"I don't want to linger," he muttered. "I didn't ask to die."
"No one does."
The light pulsed gently around them, stretching out like a fogged mirror across space. But then—images began to bloom across it, like spilled paint rearranging itself:
—Janette crying in their old bedroom.
—Bella being questioned at the precinct.
—A cold metal table at the city morgue… empty.
Sheets thrown back. No sign of a body.
Just a faint mark on the steel where he had once lain.
Garcia's eyes widened. "My body. It… vanished?"
"Two days after you died. Time flows differently here. Sometimes it forgets to flow at all."
"Where did it go?"
"That depends," the voice said. "Where do you want to go?"
He stared at the shifting lights. His thoughts raced. His regrets piled on top of each other like bricks forming a prison.
"I want…" He swallowed. "I want a do-over. I want a chance to fix things. Not just with Janette. With myself. I want to know who I really am—beyond the badge, beyond the hurt."
"A do-over?" the voice echoed, gently. "That's rare. Costly."
"I don't care."
"You might not return as you were. The world may not be the same. The rules are different. Magic flows where science once stood. Steel cities crumble into forests. Names fade. Purpose shifts."
"I'll take it," Garcia said, stepping forward now. The light around him thickened—pulling at him.
"I need to understand," he whispered. "I need… to be better."
The voice paused.
Then, it smiled—somehow, even without lips.
"Then wake up."
And just like that—
He fell.
Not like gravity.
Not like death.
But like rebirth.