The moment detective David Garrison shot around the corner to his house, everything else seemed to slow to a crawl. Stepping out of his car, he slammed the door preparing what was to come next. His mind racing in denial as he pressed forward.
The uniformed officers barely had time to react before he shoved past them, their hands catching at his arms, their voices muffled against the sheer force of his panic.
"Sir! You can't be here..."
His badge flashed before they could finish.
"I'm a detective with the Major Crimes Division," he snarled. "Step aside."
The officers, caught off guard, hesitated. None of them knew this was his house. Garrison was swift, pushing past his defeated coworkers with ease.
But the commotion caught the eye of the lead investigator on the scene.
"Shit!"
The voice was sharp, a woman's, cutting through the chatter of the surrounding houses. It was the voice of Detective Evelyn Holt.
Late thirties, sharp as nails, with a reputation to match. A veteran of homicide and violent crimes, she'd seen her fair share of homicides. But even she has never had to handle a friends whole family dying like this before.
She pushed off the hood of her unmarked car, breaking into a sprint after him. His neighbors she was talking to seconds before startled by the sudden burst of panic.
"Garrison, stop! You can't go in there!"
But he paid her no heed as he stepped inside. Locking the door behind him with an audible click.
Holt's aggressive attempts to rattle the door followed shortly after.
The stench was the first thing that hit him. The metallic scent, almost like copper, permeating from the stairwell. A rancid blend of blood and humidity that stuck to the skin somehow made it worse. His boots stuck slightly to the floor as he stepped forward, he looked down at the three sets of bloody prints still fresh on the hardwood floor.
His house, HIS HOME, no. this had to be the wrong house. He bit his cheek praying with all his might, that somehow this was all a bad dream. He didnt have time too waste, if he took to long Holt would catch up. He quickly followed the trail of blood leading upstairs and straight to Marisol's room.
He didn't even realize his feet were moving until he was standing in the doorway.
Garrison's body refused to move, as if rejecting the scene before him. His mind screamed for answers, to focus and try to process what he was seeing.
His son lay sprawled on the floor, his chest cavity torn open like some twisted version of operation. His ribcage was cracked apart, his heart missing, ripped straight from his body. Ryan's hands still clutched into fist, fingers frozen in his last moment of agony.
Emma's head lay discarded on the floor, her body tossed away twisted in the corner of the room. His daughter's body had been ripped apart like a doll and tossed away like garbage. Her dark eyes, the ones that had once sparkled with life. Were now glassy and vacant, staring at nothing.
Finally, Sophia's body lay crushed, as if something had compacted her from the inside out. Bones jutted out at unnatural angles, her chest caved inward like a used-up soda can. Blood pooled beneath her, mixing with the fluids of their children, creating a grotesque, sticky paint that coated everything.
This... this wasn't just murder.
It was a massacre.
Or... a message.
His knees buckled.
Garrison hit the floor hard, his palms landing in the blood. His breath shattered, his stomach churned violently.
Through the blur of his vision he caught movement near the bed.
Somebody was there crouched down, gloved hands moving, a plastic bag glinting in the low light. The torn head of Marisol's stuffed bunny stared out at him from inside, white stuffing pressed against the seams like cotton candy.
A young man.
Forensics maybe.
Wide-eyed, pale. Frozen stiff like a kid caught with his hands in a cookie jar. His lips moved but no sound reached Garrison through the roaring in his ears.
Garrison's gaze slid off him again. The man didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the bodies on the floor. His forehead began to sweat profusely and his mouth began to water.
Then, he threw up.
Once.
Twice.
He breathed in once more to catch his breath, and choked, bellowing out a raw unhuman scream. The tears hit fast and merciless, his entire body convulsing with sobs.
They were gone.
His whole world was gone.
Garrison barely heard Holt's voice over the roaring in his ears. "Garrison! You can't be here! You're contaminating the scene..."
She hestitated after seeing his blank stare.
Garrison was sobbing, unable to breathe through the wrenching cries that made his chest seize up.
Holt wasn't new to all this blood. But she couldn't have another breaking protocol like this. Especially the owner of this house. Someone who could easily be a suspect.
Her gaze flickered past Garrison to the bed. where a field analyst stood paralyzed, shifting uncomfortably on their feet.
Aaron Gutierrez, a junior forensic analyst, looked one second away from bolting. His nerves clearly on end. Something was clearly bugging the poor kid.
"Holt…" his voice was tight, uncertain. "Shariff's gonna have a fit."
Holt closed her eyes briefly.
Holt could already hear the sharp, scathing words Shariff would unleash when he arrived.
"This is a crime scene, not goddamn therapy!"
She exhaled sharply. "I know. Jus.... just give me a second."
Gutierrez shifted again, glancing at Garrison with something between pity and pure discomfort.
"Fine, but just a second," he grumbled not looking forward to explaining this to his boss.
She crouched next to Garrison but not touching him just yet. Unsure of how to approach the grieving man before her.
"David," she said using his first name, her voice softer now, lowered just enough to get through to him. "Come on. You need to get out of here. We'll find whoever did this. But you have to let us work."
Garrison sniffled, struggling for air, for anything that would make this make sense.
"This wasn't..." he choked on his own breath. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
Holt closed her eyes for a brief second.
She reached for him then, gripping his shoulder, not as his coworker, but as someone who could see his pain.
"That's it," she said, helping him up. "Let's go, your buddy from the other precinct is outside waiting for you."
He resisted, at first. His shaking hand reached toward his son's body, toward something he could fix, protect, hold.
But there was nothing left.
And yet... something was missing. Through the blur of his tears he scanned the room again, mind scrambling to count. Son. Daughter. Wife. But not Marisol. Her bed was empty, sheets torn. And on the carpet by the doorway lay what was left of her stuffed bunny, its seams ripped open, white stuffing spilling out like snow. His stomach dropped further. Where was she?
"David," Holt whispered, breaking garrison's line of thought. Looking him in his eyes one last time, she helped him to his feet. "Come on."
The cold night air slammed into them both like a wall as she led him outside, the crime-scene lights now glaring and unreal behind them.