The moment detective David Garrison shot around the corner to his house, everything else ceased to exist. 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, Major Crimes Division," he snarled. "Step aside."
The officers, caught off guard, hesitated. None of them knew this was his house.
But the commotion caught the eye of the lead investigator on the scene.
"Shit!"
The voice was sharp, a woman's, cutting through the static ringing in his ears. 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 human depravity. But even she wasn't prepared for this.
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 sprint.
"Garrison, stop! You can't go in there!"
But he was already inside.
The stench was the first thing that hit him—thick, putrid, suffocating. A rancid blend of blood, bile, and something darker, something wrong. His boots stuck slightly to the floor as he stepped forward, the squelch beneath his soles telling him more than he ever wanted to know.
His house—his home—had become a slaughterhouse. The trail of blood leading straight to Marisol's room.
He didn't even realize his feet were moving until he was standing in the doorway.
His body locked up, as if rejecting the scene before him. His mind screamed at him to shut down—to not process what he was seeing.
But he saw everything.
His son lay sprawled on the floor, his chest cavity torn open like an autopsy abandoned mid-process. His ribcage was cracked apart, his heart missing—ripped from his body. His hands still clutched into fist, fingers frozen in his last moment of agony.
His daughter's head lay discarded on the floor—her body twisted unnaturally in the corner, as if someone had ripped her apart like a doll and tossed away the pieces. Her dark eyes—ones that had once sparkled with life—were now glassy and vacant, staring at nothing.
And his wife.
Her 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 mire that coated everything.
It wasn't just murder.
It was destruction.
A massacre.
His knees buckled.
Garrison hit the floor hard, his palms landing in the blood. His breath shattered, his stomach twisting violently.
Through the blur of his vision he caught movement near the bed.
Somebody was there — crouched, 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 snow.
A young man.
Forensics maybe.
Wide-eyed, pale. Frozen stiff like a kid caught doing something he shouldn't. 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.
Then, he threw up.
Once.
Twice.
Then he gasped, a choked, raw sound that didn't even sound human. The tears hit fast and merciless, his entire body convulsing with sobs.
They were gone.
His whole world was gone.
He barely heard Holt's voice over the roaring in his ears. "Garrison! You can't be here! You're contaminating the scene—"
But he wasn't listening.
He was sobbing, full-bodied, wrenching cries that made his chest seize up.
Holt wasn't new to violence. But she couldn't have another cop contaminating the crime scene. 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.
Shit.
Holt could already hear the sharp, scathing words Shariff would unleash when he arrived.
"This is a crime scene, not a goddamn therapy session!"
She exhaled sharply. "I know. Just—give me a second."
Gutierrez shifted again, glancing at Garrison with something between pity and pure discomfort.
"A second might be too late."
She crouched next to Garrison but not touching him just yet.
"David," she said using his first name, 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 gasped, struggling for air, for clarity—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. "Lets 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.