In the end we had decided to choose each other's rings. There were still so many things we needed to discuss and decision we had to make which I planned on addressing but I needed a break from the whole wedding thing and analyzing how differently I was seeing Angel.

That night I spent another restless night tossing and turning. I beat my pillow but no matter what I tried I couldn't get comfortable. I was too hot and the bed was too hard.

I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what was bugging me so much that sleep had become so elusive. I heard a commotion and sat up.

It sounded like someone yelled and a door slammed, shaking the door frame. Then it sounded like multiple voices. I couldn't make out if they were arguing or not. What the hell was going on?

Feeling nervous but too inquisitive to remain in the bed I slid out and got my dressing gown. I tightened the belt before I opened my door.

"Who did this?" It sounded like Angel it was coming from downstairs.

Then someone groaned.

"Where's the doctor?" The voice was familiar but I was too far away to place it.

Quietly, I descended the stairs and followed the commotion to the kitchen. I wasn't not prepared in anyway for what I witnessed.

It was chaos. There was a guy whose face I couldn't see on the counter. Angel stood with his hands pressed against his shoulder as the injured guy groaned in pain. There was another guy with his hands against another injury on his side. There was blood. So much blood, it dripped and pooled on the floor. The crimson red was bold against the white tiles. The sight of it would made me faint but it was like my mind couldn't process what was happening because there was so much going on. The metallic smell of the blood hit my nostrils and I felt my stomach turn.

James, Angel's second in charge was cutting the guys shirt off. There was blood on his hands as he worked methodically. He was so calm while I was on the verge of hyperventilating. My breath was stuck in my lungs as I watched James remove the shirt before he began took over pressing his hands to the wound just below the guy's rib cage.

It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I had seen violence, guns, drugs, overdoses, prostitution but never anything like this. The guy looked like he was bleeding to death right in front of me.

Then the front door banged open making my heart slam in my chest and I turned to see another guy dressed in a suit rush straight past me to the injured guy. It was no one had noticed me standing there watching it all go down, they were all too focussed on the guy who was injured.

"How many times has he been shot?" The man who just arrived asked James as he took at look at the wound James lifted his hands from.

"Twice, I think."

I reached out to touch the wall, feeling like the my world was tilting. I drew in a hard breath knowing if I didn't I was going to faint right where I stood.

Then the guy who was on the table turned and I finally got a look at his face.

It couldn't be. I inhaled sharply. Bruno laying on the table. His eyes met mine and I couldn't look away.

The shouting increased but I couldn't make out what was being said as it felt like my heartbeat was drowning everything out around me. My only senses that seemed to be working was what I was seeing.

Then through everything I heard Angel say my name. "Kira?"

I lifted my eyes to meet his. There was a steak of blood on his cheek. I closed my eyes to stop from seeing the blood everywhere.

"Get her out of here." I heard him yell.

In felt like everything unfolded in slow motion as someone took me by the arms but when my feet wouldn't budge they picked me up to carry me away.

I closed my eyes tightly, still trying to come back out out of the bubble as I was taken into the living room. They lay me down on the sofa and I kept my eyes closed unable to process what I had just seen.

"Miss Ward?" Someone asked.

"I..." I shut my mouth, trying to force myself to inhale and exhale. It was like the shock had caused me to stop breath automatically and I had to remember to do it.

"I need you to sit up," a man instructed.

I opened my eyes and I saw a man's face above mine. I didn't recognise him. He looked just a few years older than me and he held a glass of what looked like water.

"Can you drink some of this?" he asked as he got me to sit up.

I nodded and he pressed the glass to my lips. I took a sip. It wasn't just water, there was sugar in. Then my mind ticked over, it was for shock. How on earth did I know that? Nothing in my immediate memory answered how I knew that.

It reminded me of something, something I had long forgotten. But it wasn't the blood soaked scene of Bruno's shooting but the still body of my mother on her bed. Her eyes unseeing.

I had screamed. I remembered that. A howling pained screamed. Then I vaguely remember Angel being there. He had bundled me out of my mother's room and to the safety of my room. He had also given me sugar water to help with the shock while others had dealt with calling an ambulance.

"You need to drink a little more." The young man insisted and I tried to drink some more but it was like my body was slower to follow instructions.

Slowly, I felt like I could breathe again even though I couldn't get rid of the image of the blood or the memory of my mother who I had discovered dead in her bed.

I rested my head in my hands. The guy who had been attending to me set the glass down in front of me.

"Thank you," I murmured, somehow remembering my manners.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked and I nodded lifting my eyes to his.

"I need you to stay here. I'll be back in a minute."

I nodded again. After witnessing there was no way I was going anywhere near the kitchen.

I could still hear yelling and hurried efforts. Not wanting to listen to another moment of it I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes, trying to shut it all out.

I wanted to be anywhere but there. Laying down on the sofa I took a cushion and put it over my head to block out what was happening. I couldn't listen to anymore of it.

But it continued. And no matter what I tried nothing blocked it out. I had to get out of there but I couldn't bring myself to open the doors to the living room to escape, it entailed going past the kitchen which I couldn't do.

Then my eyes moved to the library and the only other way out.

Someone yelled and that was the last straw. I hurried to the bookcase and tilted the book to me. The bookcase shifted and I hurried inside the passage, closing the door behind me. Inside the passage it was dusty but I couldn't hear the commotion anymore.

It was silent. I leaned against the wall and slid down to bring my knees to my chest. I rested my chin on my knees and took a deep breath before releasing it slowly as I tried to gain some sort of sanity that evaporated the moment I had seen Bruno on the kitchen counter.

But each time I closed my eyes all I could see was the blood, on the floor, smeared on Angel, on James' hands. So I tried to concentrate on grooves in the wall across from me and imagine anything but what I had witnessed.

I began to murmur to myself to keep from thinking back to what I didn't want to remember.

My mother's dead body in her bed. A bottle of pills beside her bed.

I curled my fingers into fists to ride out the emotions I remember experiencing. At thirteen, I had been too young to understand what her death would mean. It was only now as a twenty one year old I understood the impact of her loss.

I didn't want to remember my mother's death, I didn't want to think about what Bruno was going through.

"Everything is fine," I whispered, feeling like I was on the verge of tears. If I kept saying it, it would be true. I didn't want Bruno to die. He had always been so nice to me, he didn't deserve any of this.

Feeling like the little girl who had lost so much I rocked back and forth trying to find some sort of comfort.